Forever The Hero
by tealgirl713
Summary: Even after Olivia stopped believing in Hetalia, it never truly left her and her friends alone. One day, they unknowingly meet America himself, who just wants to be the hero for once in his life.
1. Prologue

**Hello! This is my first fanfiction,Hetalia or otherwise. I would really appreciate some feedback and constructive critisism.**

**Before I begin, I need to say a few more things. There will not be any countries involved in either the prologue or the first chapter, at least, not until the very end. So, please bear with me! I will try to have the second chapter up soon so you guys can enjoy the actual characters of Hetalia, and not just my OCs.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, but I do own my OCs.**

* * *

I arrived at my school, my heart pounding from anticipation. I felt free and light as air as I made my way through the crowded hallway. There was a reason for my giddiness.

Today was the last day of eighth grade, the last day of middle school. Next year, I would be a freshman, and I would go to the high school instead of this puny middle school. I kept that happy thought in my mind as I made my way upstairs to the place me and all my friends met every morning, the library.

I saw two of my friends sitting at a table on the opposite end from the door, our usual table. Making my way to them, I was unnoticed in the crowd. I crept up right behind them, ready to surprise them, when….

"Ha! I saw you first, England!"

Okay. Before I proceed with my story, there are a few things you need to know about me and my group of friends. We were, back in eighth grade, completely, without a doubt, irrefutably obsessed with all things Hetalia. Every one of us had seen most, if not all, of the episodes. We made references daily, even hourly. And we gave each other nicknames, based on which country suited us best. For example, my name is actually Olivia, but I was dubbed England because I practically never let go of a grudge, I'm very sarcastic, and I cannot, I mean _cannot_ cook. I've screwed up so many things, it's funny.

My friends that I snuck up on from behind were Kaylee and Taylor. We called them America and Germany, even though I didn't really see Taylor as a Germany. She'd proclaimed herself that, and we just went along with it.

"But I heard you first, America!"

"I'm not America, I'm Hungary! Get it right!"

Oh, yeah. Kaylee had been trying to convince us all that she was Hungary, and not America, since she had finished up the released seasons. Sometimes, I was inclined to agree, but it came down to one thing. We needed an America. We could do without a Hungary.

"Oh, shut up before I beat you with my peace prize, America."

I turned around, already knowing who it would be. My other friend Megan was behind me. If you haven't already figured it out, she's Switzerland. And she's actually a really good Switzerland, too. It's a good fit.

Megan was standing next to Grace, our resident Italy.

"Hi!" she said to me. Then she turned to Taylor. "I promise I'll get your white flag done by the end of the summer! Then you can bring it to the first day of high school, like me, and we can wave them around!"

Yep, it was official. Grace was definitely Italy.

Unknown to me, the final member of our group was sneaking up on me very, very quietly. I didn't have the hearing senses of Kaylee, so I didn't know she was behind me until a voice whispered in my ear.

"You will become one with Mother Russia, da?"

I jumped, shrieked, "NO!" and proceeded to be chased around the table for a full minute before the librarian saw us and made us stop.

The final member of our group was named Hannah, and she was unmistakably Russia.

There was no way she could be anyone else. She was, forgive me for saying this, but she was just plain evil. Most of the time. Or maybe it was evil genius? She was probably more of an evil genius, if only for the fact that she had the highest IQ out of all of us. She was really creepy sometimes, too. But she was still one of my best friends.

Taylor was the one who was legitimately obsessed. She was the one who'd discovered Hetalia in the first place, and the one who had corrupted us all. You didn't often see her without her Kindle, which she would often pull out and begin reading Hetalia fan fiction on. We always teased her about how her mind permanently lived in the gutter, in the house next to France. To be honest, Megan, Hannah and I would stray down into the gutter on occasion, but we always withdrew before things got too out of hand. But not Kaylee or Grace. Their minds were permanently pure, untouched by the gutter. We teased them about that, too.

"Hey, can you guys believe that it's already the last day of school?" Taylor looked at all of us wistfully. "I mean, it feels like just yesterday we were in 6th grade orientation, before we discovered Hetalia.

"Huh, as far as I'm concerned, Germany, you've pretty much always been obsessed with Hetalia.

"Oh, shut up England."

I laughed at her. She used that insult practically every day. It no longer had an effect on me. Not that it ever really did.

"It's true, you know!" I teased. "I swear, the first time we met, you had your nose buried in fan fiction."

"I did not!" she protested. "I started reading it this year, idiot!"

"Sure, sure, whatever you say."

She scoffed at me and turned to Kaylee.

"Fine, be that way."

Looking over at Hannah, she seemed worried. I thought I knew why.

"Are you worried your parents will find your computer?" I said, looking straight at her.

"Sort of," she admitted. "I can't believe they won't let us bring anything except our yearbooks to school today."

"Yeah, I know." I had to leave behind my IPod, which was as important to me as Taylor's Kindle was to her. I momentarily hated the school but let that feeling relax. After all, it was our last day here!

I was done with being an eighth grader. I wanted to grow up, and experience life outside of school. After today, there were only four years left! And after that, who knew? Who even cared?

We talked some more until the bell rang. I almost picked up my backpack, before realizing it wasn't there. I left the library, heading for my first class, ready to end the year once and for all.

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**How was it? Please, be honest! It's my first decent try at writing any fanfiction.**

**And, I know it's short, but the first chapters will be, at least until I get my writing style down.**

**I'm so nervous right now!**

**Ok, bye! I'm done intruding on your life, at least for now!**


	2. The Very Rocky Reunion

**Thank you, thank you so much for the reviews and the story alerts I've gotten! I'm really excited to be writing this right now!**

**Today was also my last day of school, so now I'm practically free to write whenever I want. But updates will definitly not be everyday. I only posted this update because I wrote this chapter the same day as my prologue, and just finished editing it. Chapter Three needs a lot of work, and I haven't even started Chapter Four. So, please, bear with me and keep checking your alerts!**

* * *

_**Six** **Years Later**_

Yep, six years had passed since the last day of eighth grade. During that time, me and my friends had graduated, and started college. We were now all done with our sophomore year.

As a sort of celebration for making it halfway through college, Kaylee was holding a get-together for all of us in our hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. She was the only one who was going to college there, at the University of Minnesota- Duluth Campus.

Megan and I were both going to the same college in Washington State, the University of Washington. She wanted to be a nurse (why, I don't know. Nothing against nurses, of course), while I didn't have a clue about what I wanted to be. I just wanted to go there because it was a good college, and I might be able to get an idea for what I wanted to do there. Either way, we saw each other every day, at some point. We were really good friends, best friends, even.

Hannah had gotten as far away from her parents as she could, and was attending college in Connecticut. She was going to Yale. Taylor, however, was going to some college in Nebraska. Finally, Grace went to college in Arizona. She said that she liked the heat, and didn't really like Minnesota winters. I could understand that, I guess. Sometimes our winters got to be a bit too much. But it was a great contrast from Washington, where the only snow the lowlands were likely to get was a few inches in January.

But today was going to be an exciting day, because I was going back to Minnesota for the whole summer!

Our "reunion", as Kaylee put it, was even more awesome because, for the first time since we had all gone off to college, we would all be in Duluth at the same time.

And that is how I ended up screaming at Megan in the SeaTac International Airport.

"We're going to miss our plane! Why, oh why did you have to stop at Starbucks on the way?"

"Because coffee is delicious, and it's like, five in the morning," she said, her eyebrows raised. "And if you don't shut up and get a move in, we WILL miss our plane."

She had a point. I quickly shut up and we made our way to security as fast as possible. While we were standing in line, I passed the time by worrying out loud.

"Oh, we're totally going to miss our flight!"

"No, we're not." Megan was trying to reassure me, before I got out of control. It wasn't working.

"I can't believe we're missing our flight!"

"We're not missing our flight!"

"WHY DO I ALWAYS MISS MY FLIGHTS?" Yep. I was officially out of control.

"OH, SHUT UP!" Megan yelled at me, trying to calm me down.

"Ow! Megan, that was in my ear!"

"Don't blame me if you have a tendency to worry about everything.

_She's right,_ I thought, while rubbing my ear.

Fairly soon, it was our turn. We took off our shoes and jackets, putting them into the bins. Megan had to take her laptop out of her bag, because she had decided to bring it on the flight. We walked through the metal detector and put our stuff back on. Checking my watch, I mentally cussed when I saw it was already 5:20, and our plane was departing at 5:50.

"Come on, Megan!" I dragged her through the crowds and didn't stop until we were in front of our gate: D5. We gave our tickets to the person at the desk, and made our way back to our seats, which were in the front of the Economy cabin. Once my nerves had calmed down a bit, I realized that I was really hungry. I pulled out the fiber bar I'd packed in my purse especially for this.

"What is that?" Megan asked, gesturing to the bar.

"It's my breakfast."

"Are you serious? That's all you eat for breakfast? Ha, that's why you have such a slow metabolism!"

I gave her my murderous stare and she decided to shut up. But then she had to pull out a huge bag of Goldfish crackers and start shoving them in her mouth. Megan had a thing for Goldfish crackers. I mean, I liked them, who doesn't, right? But the way Megan ate them was almost inhuman. I had no idea how she managed to eat all of that and still stay as skinny as she was.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she said.

"You call THAT breakfast? Honestly, at least have dry cereal!"

"You had a fiber bar!"

"So? What does that matter?"

In the midst of our argument the plane had taken off and we were now flying above Washington, which was green, as always. I felt excitement as we passed over the city, and then the lowlands and the mountains. I was finally going back home, to my favorite state.

I looked out of the window pretty much the entire plane ride and I let out a squeak of excitement when the pilot said that we were beginning the descent. Megan just rolled her eyes at me.

"Aren't you excited about going home?" I asked.

"Yeah, of course I am, but don't you think that you're overreacting a bit too much?"

Overreacting? How was I overreacting? I was just excited to be home.

The rest of the flight passed with Megan alternating between eating and playing video games on her computer, while I just stared out the window. I hadn't had free time like this since Christmas, but even that was disrupted by classwork that was due the day I got back. Now I was quite literally free. I was ready to be able to do whatever I wanted for once.

* * *

Pretty soon, we were riding in the backseat of a taxi on the way to my parent's house. Megan's parents were out of town, so she would stay with me and my family until hers came back from their second honeymoon.

I was still pretty ecstatic about Duluth during the taxi ride, and I'm guessing I wasn't a lot of fun to hang out with, judging from when Megan was repeatedly banging her head on the window at my nonstop talking. Oh, well. I didn't really care.

I tried to get a good glimpse of Duluth as we drove through it, but when we got close enough, the fog was too thick to see anything. Disappointed, I sat in sulky silence the rest of the way home. Until we got there, of course.

My house was out in the suburbs, fairly far away from downtown. It was green, and it had two floors, and a basement. There were three bedrooms. I would stay in mine, and Megan would stay in the other one. My older brother, Sam, was off serving in the army, so his room was empty. I worried about him every day, but he called as often as he could.

Pulling up to the house was an awesome feeling. Before I knew it, I had dragged Megan out of the taxi and to my front door, where I knocked, and my mom answered the door.

"Hi Olivia, hi Megan!" She stood by to let us in. I gave her a hug as I walked by, excited to see her. Dad was at work, and would be for the next several hours until he got home at around six.

As soon as I was fully inside, I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Kaylee.

_Hey, Megan and I just landed; we're at my mom's house. I'm really excited to see everybody, where are we going?_

Sadly, our semester in college had ended a little later than everyone else's. Kaylee had been done for over two weeks, and the others had all finished the week before. Our last day was two days ago. It really wasn't fair. But, of course, we went back the latest, too.

I put my phone away and went into the kitchen, where I saw a plate of freshly baked cinnamon rolls that my mom had obviously just baked. Megan was eating them all, stuffing them into her outh as fast s she could.

"Megan! Save me some!" I protested as I managed to grab one from her greedy hands. I looked at it longingly, and then I took a bite.

"Ohh," I moaned. The cinnamon roll was one of the best things I had ever tasted. My mom made the best cinnamon rolls in the entire world. The icing was perfectly melted, and it was so sweet. The bread itself was soft, and easily tore off in my teeth.

"Mom, how can you possibly be this good of a baker?" I said. It was quite funny, actually. My mom was a terrible cook, but an amazing baker. My dad was a terrible baker, but an amazing cook. I guess I got the "terrible" parts for both of them. Oh well, it didn't really matter to me. I really wasn't worried about my ability to afford take-out and fast food. Wow. I really sounded like an American in that sentence.

While we were enjoying our delicious cinnamon rolls, I got a text back from Kaylee.

It said:

_Glad to hear it! We're going to meet over in the parking lot of the Aerial Bridge and go from there. See you in a few minutes!_

I grabbed Megan by the wrist and dragged her to my mom's car in the garage. Apparently, I was intent on dragging her everywhere today.

"Olivia, what's going on?"

"I got a text from Kaylee. We're heading to the Aerial Bridge."

"Sounds like fun."

"Mom," I called. "We're taking your car."

"OK!" she said. "Don't crash it!"

"I won't!" Really, mom? I had been driving for four years, I was pretty sure I could handle this.

Soon we were driving as fast as I dared to the Aerial Bridge. There was still an awful amount of fog in the air for the afternoon. But soon enough I turned into the parking lot, and parked the car in the first spot I came to.

Megan and I got out of the car, looking for the others, when we heard laughter. Very familiar laughter.

We turned around and saw the four of them, grouped around Kaylee's car. I motioned to Megan, and we crept around the backside, right behind Kaylee.

"Saw you first, England!"

I jumped as she turned around and gave me a huge hug, before giving Megan one, too. I got hugs from everyone else, too. When the hug fest was over, I turned to face Kaylee.

"How is it that you've always known that it was me sneaking up on you?"

"Simple," she said, grinning. "I know you. You do it all the time. And I felt your breath."

"Why'd you call me England? We haven't called each other by our country names for years."

"I don't know, it just felt like a natural response to you sneaking up on me like that." That made sense. After all, it was what she had done every time I tried sneaking up on her for eighth and ninth grade.

"Hey, where are we going, anyway?" Megan asked, sounding a little impatient. Not that I blamed her. I was excited to see where we were going.

Kaylee shot us all a mysterious grin. "Follow me," she said, leading us down to the rocky beach under the bridge. We followed her to the mystery spot like ducklings follow their mother. I thought I might know where we were going, but I kept it to myself, in case I was wrong.

Which I wasn't, of course.

We were standing on the beach we'd always visit when we were younger. We hadn't been here in years. I looked out at it, seeing that it hadn't changed much. It still had the same rusty picnic tables and beautiful view. It was still stuck between the lake and the forest. It even sounded the same. I looked out along the beach; trying to see as well as I could through the fog. Farther down the rocks, just at the edge of my vision, I saw a few solitary figures, but they weren't very close. We might as well be alone.

"When was the last time we all came here?" I asked Kaylee.

"The time you dared me to stay in the lake for a full minute, in the middle of January."

"Oh, yeah! I remember that you were blue-skinned when the time was up."

"I had mild hypothermia!"

"Yeah, your mom wasn't too happy with me."

"Neither was I!"

"Why did you do it, again? I forgot."

"Don't you remember? We were playing Truth or Dare, and I was out of chickens!"

"Now I do!" I said. I smiled as I thought of that day. We'd ended it like we did most days at this beach, skipping rocks. This beach had the best rocks for that, skinny and flat.

It had been a shared pastime of ours, skipping rocks. I remember being jealous of Kaylee because she could do a double skip and I couldn't do anything, so one night I snuck out here and skipped rocks for hours, until I could do a triple skip. Kaylee's face the next morning had been priceless.

For old time's sake, I picked up a rock and threw it. It did a double skip before sinking to the depths of the lake. Megan picked up a rock too, and skipped it only once.

All of a sudden, Kaylee's face lit up with an idea. "Hey! Why don't we have a competition, like we used to, back in the old days?" Kaylee probably thought she would beat me, but I knew I could win.

"Bring it on!" I said. "Anyone else in?"

"Sure," said Megan.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world." Taylor looked blissfully happy at doing something from our past.

Grace looked apprehensive. "Maybe I'll just watch."

We ended up splitting into two teams, Kaylee and Megan on one side, Taylor and I on the other. We felt the teams were more evenly matched that way. And so, the battle began. We started out by seeing how many total skips each team could get in five throws each, with Grace tallying up the scores. Taylor and I won that round.

We partied in a circle for a minute or so until Kaylee suggested we see how far we could throw the rock before a successful skip. I looked at her, disgruntled. I was horrible at this! When the round ended, the only person to throw far and even have one successful skip was Kaylee. Since neither of us could think of anymore team games to play, we called it even.

Only then did I notice that Hannah was back at a picnic table, with her computer out doing who knew what on there. I walked over to look. She was on YouTube. Seeing the familiar logo on that screen brought back memories of huddling around it, watching our favorite show, Hetalia.

That got me thinking.

"Hey, guys!" I yelled. They all turned their heads towards me.

"We should call each other by our Hetalia nicknames for the rest of the day!"

"Ha, that sounds like a good idea, England," said Taylor.

"Thank you, Germany." I managed to fight my laughter. I couldn't really explain it, maybe it was the fact that we were practically reenacting our past?

"Hey, Germany!" Grace said, looking over at Taylor.

"Yes, Italy?"

"We should go skip some rocks!"

After they left to go back down to the water, there were only four of us left. Hannah, Megan, Kaylee, and I.

"Hey, Switzerland," Hannah said, an evil glint in her eyes.

"What is it, Russia?"

"You will become one with Mother Russia, da?"

Within the next few moments, the four of us were doubled over in laughter. It wasn't even that funny, but the thought of Hannah always doing that back in middle school brought tears of laughter to my eyes. I sensed the people far away staring at us, but I didn't care. We were all laughing much too hard to care anymore.

It wasn't long after we had finally gotten over the giggles when I decided that I was going to say something even funnier, even though it was totally out of context.

"Hey, would anyone like a scone? I just baked them!"

I had barely finished my sentence when Kaylee shouted, "NO! ENGLAND, YOUR FOOD IS TERRIBLE!" at the top of her lungs.

"NOT AS TERRIBLE AS YOUR FOOD, AMERICA!"

"SOON ALL WILL BECOME ONE WITH MOTHER RUSSIA!"

Actually, soon all were rolling around on the ground, trying to breathe as our past memories of doing the same thing when we were younger kept flooding back and making us laugh even harder. Why hadn't we done this sooner? It was so great to relive an old obsession with old friends. I totally recommend it.

Soon Taylor and Grace wandered over to see why we were laughing. We told them, and pretty soon, they were laughing, too.

While we were laughing, we didn't notice the man who was walking towards us. But when I stood up, I saw him. He was still somewhat shrouded in fog, so I couldn't see his face.

"Oh, I'm sorry, were me and my friends disturbing you?" I said, worried that we had.

He stepped out of the fog and into a clear view.

I gasped. I actually gasped. This guy, well, he was kind of hot. He looked to be about our age, maybe a bit older, and slightly taller than us. He had somewhat messy blonde hair and striking blue eyes.

"Dude, that's ok!" he said in a cheerful voice. "Were you guys calling each other countries? Cause that is totally awesome!"

I had an odd feeling about him. I knew I had never met this person in my life, but, for some reason, I felt as if I knew him from somewhere, but looked a little different. It was hard to explain, and even harder to understand. I just couldn't place it.

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**DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN!**

**Bet it didn't take you long to figure out who that is.**

**Don't worry, next chapter is from the _other _main character's point of view.**

**Happy reading!**


	3. A Hero Complex?

**Yes, I stayed up until one in the morning to do this. No, I have no regrets.**

**Yay, the countries have arrived! I apoloize for any and all OOC-ness, I'm still getting used to writing about the countries.**

**Updates will probably be a lot slower after this, but, you never know. I have ideas through chapter 6 at least, but it's hard putting thoughts into words sometimes.**

**This is for my lovely friend pastaaaaaaluvr:**

**Yeah, I knew who you were the minute I saw your username. Thanks for checking it out!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, I do own the OCs.**

"Dude, there's only one way to solve all the world's problems, and you're going to love it!" America said to the gathered World Conference, who were all looking at him skeptically. "I should totally be the hero, and everyone else should be my sidekicks!"

This was met with dead silence, for maybe a second, followed by derisive laughter from all sides.

"Come on! I'm an awesome hero!"

"America, you're not a hero, you bloody git!" England said through his laughter. "Do you even have anything productive to say at all?"

"Of course not, you're talking to America! Who's way less awesome than me!"

"Prussia, why are you even here, you're not a country anymore!" Germany said to his older brother.

"So? What, just because I'm not a country doesn't mean I don't exist anymore!"

And thus, another World Conference dissolved into slightly organized chaos. Not that anyone was really expecting that it wouldn't. England could clearly be heard reprimanding Sealand for sneaking into the World Conference _again, _and there was more than one insult being thrown across the room by the ruder nations(**A/N: Romano, I'm looking at you**). America, who usually at this point would go over and talk to Prussia, or maybe Spain, just didn't feel like it today. He felt like hanging out by himself until the meeting was disbanded, however lonely that would end up being.

Walking over to the wall, he leaned up against it believing he was alone. However, he was wrong.

"Oh, hi America," came a voice from the shadows.

"Whoa, who's there?"

"It's me, Canada," the nation said, stepping out in the light.

"Oh. Hey bro," America said, before turning to look back at the mixture of countries in the room.

"Why aren't you over there, talking with someone else?"

"They never respect my ideas," America said, sounding oddly glum for someone usually so much brighter and cheerful. "I mean, all I want is to be the hero, right? And all the other countries do is mock me for it, without even thinking that I might have some good ideas." As he said the words, America felt even less appreciated. Why wouldn't the other countries listen to him? It wasn't fair.

He passed the rest of the time until the meeting was disbanded awkwardly hanging out by the wall, next to Canada. He didn't say anything, and neither did Canada. It made him even angrier when none of the countries came over to see if he was okay. It was a weird feeling for America, being blatantly ignored. He wondered if this was what Canada felt like all of the time.

"Hey, Canada?" he asked.

"Yeah?" Canada looked up from his feet, seemingly surprised that America was still there next to him.

"You think I have good ideas, right?" He was asking out of hope. Canada, being America's brother, had always supported America in pretty much whatever he did. He really needed the support of the other nation right now.

"Well, um, don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes your plans to "save the world" can get a bit unbelievable. I mean, you do kind of have a hero complex."

America couldn't believe what he was hearing. Canada had never said that to America before. That made it even harder to bear. It seemed that everything was going wrong for America today, from his breakfast of burned toaster waffles, to the heavy traffic that morning, and to right now.

"Well, if that's how everyone really feels, then maybe I'll just leave."

"America, wait! I didn't mean anything by that!"

"Whatever, Canada. Obviously no one appreciates the hero."

Still unnoticed by anyone but Canada, America made his way to the door, and without even a second glance back, opened it and exited the room in a hurry, slamming the door as loud as he could. Behind him, the loud chatter of the room died instantly, and America waited for someone to come outside to bring him back in to the meeting. But no one came. So what? America didn't care what the others thought of him. Heroes didn't try to fit whatever people wanted them to be, and America was a hero, right? _Of course I am, _he reassured himself as he walked down the long hallway to the main door.

He left the building, still angry. He looked out at the foggy, gloomy day, and cursed himself for hosting a meeting in Minnesota this early in the year. He should have known that it would be cold. After all, it was one of his states.

Deciding that he needed to take a break and cool off for a bit, he got in his car and drove to the nearest McDonalds. Junk food always managed to make him feel better. He drove up to the drive-thru window, excited with the prospect of his favorite food.

"Hello, welcome to McDonalds, order when you're ready," came a voice from the ordering screen. America looked at the menu. Everything looked good, but he still had to decide.

"I want two Big Macs, a large fry, and a chocolate shake!"

"Will that be all, sir?"

"Yep."

"Proceed to the first window."

America complied, thinking about how awesome of an idea McDonalds was. Whoever came up with the idea deserved a medal.

He picked up his food and paid the money, and then he parked in the parking lot so he could enjoy his food. Regardless of all he had eaten, he still managed to finish it all, with room in his stomach to spare. And it was good. But, to America, all junk food was good.

After he finished eating, he thought about what had gone down at the meeting. He knew he'd probably overreacted, but it wasn't right for the countries to make fun of him all the time. Why was it always him, anyway? He wasn't the only one who was different. Prussia wasn't even a country, and the only one who ever bugged him about it was Germany. And what about England's ridiculously bushy eyebrows? Those were much funnier than America always wanting to be the hero. France was a freaking pervert, and still, no one got teased and ridiculed as much as America. It just wasn't fair.

But, then again, he thought, looking at himself in the rear view mirror, he could be a little obsessive about being a hero and saving the world. But was that really so wrong? He just wanted to feel needed and important. The next time all of the countries were together again, America would just have to make that clear.

He pulled out of the lot and started driving again, farther north, not really caring about where he was going. It was funny; the weather seemed to be reflecting his mood. At least the fog was wearing off, somewhat. Eventually America ended up driving to a beach on the shore of the largest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. Why he was there, he didn't know, but it seemed like a good place to let off the extra stress.

Getting out of his car, he walked down the slight slope that separated the asphalt from the rocks. He looked around the beach, at least, what he could see of it. The fog was even thicker here by the water, and America could only see about a thousand feet in front of him. He walked down to the water, trying to snap himself back to normal, well, as normal as he ever got. The water was pretty clear for such a big lake, and it looked really cold. Just to verify, he leaned over to touch the water, drawing his hand back immediately. Jeez, that water was freezing! Usually, by June, most water was pretty warm. Obviously not in Minnesota.

Looking around, he saw some people, but they weren't very close. There was also a pretty flat rock on the beach in front of him. America picked one of them up, and drawing on his hidden power of strength, flung it at the lake.

It managed to skip no less than six times, with a huge jump each time. America smiled to himself at his achievement. He had always liked skipping rocks, ever since he was little and England showed him how. Of course, it helped that it was something he was really good at. If he'd tried harder, he could have probably done a lot better

America then let his eyes wander along the beach, noticing that it was full of good, flat rocks. He'd have to try and come back tomorrow; it was starting to get dark. He didn't realize how long it had taken him to drive up north.

Leaving the beach, America looked back once more at it. He didn't linger, he'd be coming back tomorrow. So he left, and went to spend the night in a hotel by the lake, which was really more of an inn, with separate little suites instead of lots of rooms that all looked the same. He would stay in the largest room (which was really more like a small cabin) for just one night.

* * *

The next morning, America woke up at about eleven in the morning, slightly earlier than he usually wanted to. He was pretty excited to go down to the beach again. For some reason, it had a sort of attracting pull to it. But when he looked outside, he saw that the weather was still impossibly foggy. At least it was slightly less thick than the previous day.

He got down to his car and started it up again, managing to find his way back to the beach. Before he could get out and enjoy it, his phone rang. He picked it up, not paying attention to the caller ID.

"Hey, wassup?"

"Hi, America, it's Canada. I was just calling to see how you were doing after you stormed out of the meeting yesterday. I'm a little worried about you."

"Oh, I'm fine, dude!" America said. "I found a really cool beach that has a lot of skipping rocks. That's where I am right now!"

"Oh, cool. Which beach are you at?"

"I'm not really sure; I just kind of found it. And, if you're thinking of coming too, don't bother. It's really foggy here."

"OK, well, call me later! Please?"

"Ha-ha, alright Canada! Bye!" He hung up, and got out of his car, heading for the beach. There weren't as many people out today, but maybe that was because it was earlier in the day. America walked down to the water's edge and started skipping rocks again. He managed to test out his strength for real this time, skipping as many as eight times (probably more, except he couldn't see far enough through the fog to tell). He was having a lot of fun with it that he hardly noticed that more than two hours had passed. That is, until his stomach started growling.

"Aw, I'm hungry, and I didn't bring any food!" He started to walk back to his car, when he noticed some shapes moving on the edge of the horizon, almost completely hidden by the fog.

"Hey, maybe they have food." It was worth a shot. One of the parts of brain registered that this might not be the best idea, but he was hungry, so what else could he do? Plus, he was the hero. And nothing bad ever happened to the hero. He walked towards the shapes, which slowly turned into a more human shape, and then he heard one of them shout at the top of their lungs.

"NO! ENGLAND, YOUR FOOD IS TERRIBLE!"

He stopped, confused. That voice was definitely female, and he didn't know any female countries that sounded like that. And, more importantly, why would England be out here in the first place? He'd normally be back in his own country by now. He was still confused until the second person talked.

"NOT AS TERRIBLE AS YOUR FOOD, AMERICA!"

Hey, he was America, not the person over there! And both of those voices belonged to girls. This other person was certainly not England. He was even more confused when a third voice broke out, too.

"SOON ALL WILL BECOME ONE WITH MOTHER RUSSIA!"

That last comment was definitely weird; although sounding female, the person used the same phrase many of the nations associated with Russia. America was starting to get severely creeped out. What was going on? Through the mist, he saw the girls laughing down on the ground, as two others came up to join them, and promptly started laughing, too. America did what any hero would do and decided to investigate.

He walked closer to the shadow figures and saw them all get up and stop moving; they obviously knew he was there. One of the girls, the one who was closest to him, started talking to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, were me and my friends disturbing you?"

She sounded like the one who'd insulted America's food. He walked even closer, trying to see her clearly.

She had dirty blonde hair that came down almost to her elbows, and, as far as America could tell, sea green eyes. It was still foggy in-between them. She appeared to be at about the same height as England, so she was quite a bit shorter than him. She was with five other girls her same age, which appeared to be about 20.

America smiled at her and decided to reply in his normal way. "Dude, that's ok! Were you guys calling each other countries? Cause that is totally awesome!"

* * *

**Yay! The main characters have met up, and some craziness is about to happen!**

**Of course, that always happens in Hetalia.**

**Chapter three...Ugg, that's going to be tough to write. But bear with me, I will finish it by Saturday. **

**Hopefully.**

* * *

**Oh, one more thing.**

**Since today was the last day of school, we were allowed to write on our teacher's whiteboards.**

**In my history class, someone had written, right in the middle of the board, _Alfred F. Jones._**

**I later found out that that was my friend Claire, known as Chairisse on FFn.**

**She's awesome. Love you, Claire! **


	4. Hetalia?

**OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK THIS LONG. **

**I had the draft done yesterday, but then I spent the night at my cousin's house and didn't get to start editing it until about an hour ago. **

**Please don't hate me!**

**Yeah, so I'm really not that proud of this chapter. There were a lot of ways I could have taken it, and I'm not too fond of the way I did, but it's a better way to set up the later chapters (WHICH PROBABLY WON'T TAKE AS LONG).**

**Hope you enjoy, and I'll attempt to have the next chapter up by Monday.**

* * *

The girl that America had responded to stared at him for a second, before shaking her head and answering, "Oh, it's sort of an inside joke between us. When we were younger, we used to watch this anime show called Hetalia, which was all about the human personifications of countries. It's a pretty awesome show."

"Really?" America was a human personification of a country. He'd heard the one called "America" tease the one called "England" about her bad cooking, which was certainly something that was true in real life. The hero needed to investigate further.

"Can I see an episode?"

"Sure! I'm Olivia, by the way. These guys are my friends: Hannah, Grace, Taylor, Kaylee, and Megan." She gestured to each of her friends in turn as she said their names. Then she walked over to a picnic table not too far from them, where a laptop was set up. She typed _Hetalia Axis Powers Episode 1 _into the search box, and clicked on the first video available.

"You're going to love it," she said, grinning at him. He smiled back, not really sure of what to think.

The video started, on what appeared to be _his _face. That was confirmed by the way he talked and the text above his head that read America. The America on the screen started talking about global warming and human enslavement a then genetically engineering a hero to protect the earth while the faces of other countries flashed on the screen. It was really strange; he could tell who everyone was before reading the text next to them. They all looked really close to how they did in real life.

Then Switzerland threatened to beat Japan with his peace prize, and England, as usual, voiced his doubts about America's plan.

Eventually it ended up like the real World Conferences did, loud arguing and fighting, with a lot of side conversations. America was starting to get a headache from it all when, finally, Germany intervened and took charge, setting down strict rules, and calling on Italy for a speech, who just shouted the word pasta, and then it cut to the intro. Olivia paused the video and turned to America, obviously wondering what his opinion of the video so far was.

"So, what did you think?"

What did he think? Well, it was definitely crazy, that was for sure. All of the characters that he'd seen so far were a lot like their real counterparts. And they looked like them, too. He was surprised that the girls hadn't recognized him from the video. _But, _he thought, _it's pretty unbelievable to think that a person in an animated TV show you used to watch is real. _

The most important thought in his mind right now washow.

How in the world did someone get that much information about all the countries-enough to put in a television show? Could it have been one of the countries themselves? Japan?

He pushed those questions to the back of his mind-they weren't important right now.

If he ignored the fact that he was watching himself and people he knew being portrayed as anime characters, the show was pretty funny. He could see why the girls liked it so much.

"I think it's pretty cool," he said, trying to keep any betraying emotions out of his face. "What's it about, besides the human personifications of countries?"

"Well, it focuses mostly on the Axis Powers, you know, Germany, Italy, and Japan," said the girl named Taylor. She had bushy brown hair and brown eyes. "Later in the series, there is a heavier focus on both the Axis and the Allies. The first few episodes center more around Germany and Italy, though. Some people ship them together."

"Ship them together? What does that mean?"

Taylor laughed. "It means they want the pair of them to be in a romantic relationship."

America stopped short. People wanted Germany and Italy to be in a romantic relationship? He was _so _going to tease them about that!

"Are there any other ships?"

"Yeah, but most of them are made up by fans, because there really aren't a lot of romantic relationships on the show," said the tallest one, Kaylee. "My favorite was Prussia and Hungary."

"Oh come on, Kaylee, you know PruAus is much better!"

"No it's not, Taylor!"

America cleared his throat loud enough to be heard by the girls. "Is anybody ever shipped with America?"

Olivia laughed. "Definitely. One of the most popular ships out there is USUK."

"Wait, you mean, like America and England?" He was baffled. People actually saw him as being in a relationship with England? He could not think of anything he'd ever heard that was more ridiculous than that. Well, maybe the fact that there was an anime show about he and his fellow countries. That was pretty ridiculous.

"Yeah, but, personally, I don't like it," said Megan. "I mean, it explains in the anime later that England practically raised America, so I feel that their relationship would be more brotherly, if, of course, England got over his massive grudge against America for the Revolutionary War."

"England can hold a grudge for a long time," Olivia said, smiling. "I should know, I'm the one who's most like him."

"How do you figure out who you're most like, anyway?"

"Well, I took a quiz. I've actually gotten several characters on different quizzes, but I've gotten England the most."

"Can I try one?" he asked. He was curious as to who the computer would say he was.

"Of course!" Olivia pulled the laptop over to herself, and when she pushed it back over to America, there was a quiz, with _What Hetalia Character Are You? _written at the top. He sat down on the picnic bench, realizing he'd been standing the whole time, and began choosing the answers that best fit him.

It was no surprise that he got America when he was done. He smirked to himself as the others looked at his results.

"America, huh?" Olivia said. "That's cool. You're just like Kaylee."

Kaylee elbowed Olivia in the shoulder. "Hey, I thought we cleared this up ages ago! I'm not America, I'm Hungary!"

"Whatever, Kaylee."

"So, what did the rest of you get?" America wanted to see if their results were accurate, based on what he knew.

"I'm Germany, but that was self-proclaimed," said Taylor. "I've never actually taken the test. I also nicknamed Grace Italy, but that fits pretty well on its own." Everyone else in the group was nodding.

Taylor continued, saying, "Olivia is England, which, if you hang around her and know her for a while, is a perfect fit. She might not look like an England, but she's got a very sarcastic side, and she loves to be right."

"That's because I _am _always right!" Olivia protested.

"Whatever. Hannah's Russia, which, at least back in the eighth grade, was a pretty good fit. Maybe not perfect, but good. Megan is Switzerland, but that's partially because she has gotten pretty much every country you can get on the quizzes. She decided to be neutral, and be Switzy."

"Don't call me Switzy!"

"I can call you Switzy if I want to. Finally, Kaylee got America, although she refuses to admit it."

"That's because I only took one quiz, and I was happy with being America!"

"Until you decided to become Hungary."

America watched the two girls continue to bicker, while he thought about everything he'd learned about Hetalia so far. He'd already decided that he would hang out with these girls again sometime, and for now just leave them with his human name. But then Olivia spoke once more.

"Oh wait! You don't know about the nation's human names!" Olivia looked really excited to reveal this bit of information.

"What are those?" America felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was pretty sure he already knew.

"Well, in Hetalia fanfiction," said Olivia, "sometimes the author of the fanfiction doesn't want to use the name of the country, but instead a real, human name. The human names were picked based on what would be a normal, common name from their country. For example, America's human name is Alfred F. Jones, and England's is Arthur Kirkland."

America mentally cussed. These girls knew his human name, so he couldn't use it! They were bound to ask for it sooner or later, and he couldn't exactly tell them that he was America, could he? Well, he could, but he didn't think that was the best idea, at least not yet, when he was still getting to know them. If he told them today, who knew what they would do? Would they even believe him?

He was snapped out of his train of thought by Kaylee, who asked, "So, do you want to finish this episode?"

"Yeah, and maybe we can watch a few more of them." He wanted to know exactly what he was dealing with.

Olivia started the video again. America kicked back and watched more episodes of Hetalia. His original assumption, that it was funny, was most certainly true. He found himself laughing along with the girls more than a few times. The show also said a lot about WWII, and the ongoing fight between the Allies and the Axis.

Some parts were especially funny, like when England was trying to summon a demon, and Russia, of all people, showed up. He laughed even harder in the episode with Busby's Chair. He almost said, "I remember that!" but stopped himself just in time. He still made a small noise, at which Olivia looked over at him, but he just waved her off.

_That was close, _he thought.

It was weird how much of the things that happened in the episodes actually did happen. America knew that almost all of the parts with him in it did. He also noticed how there were several events from his own history left out, but he thought that the writers may have wanted to focus on more of a world view. That was okay with him. It was embarrassing to watch himself on the screen, even though it wasn't really him.

They didn't realize how many episodes they'd watched until the sun was almost set and the fog was almost completely gone. America looked at the watch he was wearing. It read 7:32.

Wow, he hadn't realized it was that late. How long had they been here, watching the videos? Apparently, no one else had noticed it was so late, because Megan asked, "What time is it?"

"About 7:30."

"Whoa!" Olivia shot up from her seat, looking flustered. "It's really that late?"

"Yep."

"Where did all that time go?" Taylor mused.

"Hey, I just realized we never got yourname," Kaylee said. "What is it?"

America had known this would be coming. After all, when you show a stranger several episodes of your favorite TV show, you're going to want to know his name, right? But he still failed to prepare a good name, so now he had to come up with one on the spot.

"My name's…..John Smith." As soon as he said it, he regretted it. _Really, America? John Smith? The best name you can come up with is John Smith?_

"Oh, like that explorer guy from Pocahontas," Grace said. "Cool."

"Hey, can you put your number into my phone?" asked Olivia. "You're a pretty cool guy, John Smith."

"Ha, sure." He took her phone and put in his number.

"Can you put it into mine, too?"

"And mine?"

Before he knew it, America had the phone numbers of all six girls in his phone, and his number was in theirs. The fog was pretty much gone now. It was starting to get cold outside.

"Well, I have to go," Hannah said, packing up her computer. "I had a really good time!"

"So did I, but I promised my parents I would pick up some milk on the way home, and the stores close at eight." Kaylee left, too.

"Grace and I have to get going, too. We're driving over to Walnut Grove in the morning to see some Laura Ingalls Wilder stuff," said Taylor.

Finally, the only people left were Megan, Olivia, and America.

"I'm going to the car, Olivia, hurry up." Megan left as well.

The silence hung suspended in the air for a minute as the two of them looked anywhere but at each other. Finally, Olivia broke the silence.

"You know, it was really nice meeting you, John," Olivia said, looking up at him. Their eyes met in the darkening twilight.

"You too," he said, grinning back at her. "Maybe I'll see you later?"

"Okay! Bye, John! Call me sometime!" Then she walked away, and America watched her until he couldn't see her anymore. He turned around and walked toward his car, thankful that the fog was gone. He got in, turned it on, and drove back to the inn to book another night.

He had a lot more to do here in Duluth, and a very important phone call to make.

* * *

**Who's he gonna call?**

**(GHOSTBUSTERS!)**

**Actually, no, that's not who he's going to call at all. **

**So, I will try to have the next chapter up by the end of tomorrow, but I'm pretty busy for most of the day, so no promises.**

**Have a good weekend!**


	5. A Conference of Confessions

**Yay! Another chapter!**

**I just want to say that this was a horrible chaper for me to write(a least the first half) and I only got through it because of my fangirly texts with pastaaaaaaluvr.**

**You're awesome, pastaaaaaaluvr!**

**So, without further ado, I present to you Chapter Four!**

* * *

Upon arriving back at the little inn from the night before and reserving the same room for an indefinite amount of time, America pulled out his cell phone and dialed the only number he could think of.

"Hello?" A very tired England was on the other end of the line.

"Sup, British dude! It's me, America!"

"You bloody wanker! Don't you realize that it is four in the morning here? Some people like to be asleep at this time!"

"Sorry man, but this is really important!" The urgent tone in his voice made England stop yelling at him for a moment.

"What is it?"

"No time to explain, just go to YouTube and search Hetalia Episode One."

"Why?" The sheer exhaustion in his voice was overly stressed in that word.

"Just do it! And hurry up!"

"Fine." After a few seconds, America could hear the sound of typing keys and then the click of a mouse. He heard his anime voice, oddly distorted by the phone's speakers. At least a minute had passed before England set the video on pause and spoke to America.

"Bloody hell."

"Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?"

"But, how?"

"I've been asking myself the same question for half the day."

"But how'd you see this?"

"Well, I met some girls at the beach, and they were calling each other by country nicknames."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Well, before they noticed me, one of them called the other England, and insulted her cooking. That girl called the other America, and insulted _her_ cooking. And then there was one who kept going on about becoming one with Mother Russia. Sound familiar?"

"They gave each other nicknames based off of us? Wait, my cooking is amazing! You all just have bad taste!"

"Dude, that girl's words, not mine. And, as it turns out, this show has been airing for years, and we never knew about it."

"The England in there really did look a lot like me."

"I know; I was pretty surprised those girls didn't recognize me. So, what do you think we should do?"

"We need to call another meeting.

* * *

"Remind me, why are we all here again?" Germany asked from his seat, back in the meeting room they had used for the previous meeting. America and England had wasted no time informing all the nations of the coming meeting, and now, two days later, they were all here once more.

"Do you want to tell them, America?" said England.

"Nah, I think you should do it. They'll listen to you better."

England looked at him oddly for a moment, but then turned to the group at large.

"It has come to America's and my attention that someone, somewhere, knows an awful lot about all of us."

"How do you know this?" asked a clearly worried Germany.

"Just take a look at this video."

Everyone turned their heads to the large projector screen on the opposite wall from the main podium. America's laptop was hooked up to the projector, and he found the first episode of Hetalia and clicked on it.

The room was in complete silence as the video played. England didn't bother to pause it after the intro and just let it play all the way through. When it was finished, everyone stayed silent, with no noise. Until…

"Hey, why wasn't I in there?" cried Sealand from his seat. Everyone ignored him, except for England, who gestured to the door with the universal "get out" symbol. Sealand hurriedly did as he was told. Still, no one spoke for several more seconds.

"Mein Gott! What was that?" Germany finally broke the silence, looking unusually flustered. The other nations in the room broke out with the same cries, demanding answers from the pair standing before them.

England turned to America, and gave him a look that clearly said: _It's your turn._

Gulping, America stepped up to the podium, looking out over the mass of talking nations. They were all conversing very loudly, and it didn't look like anyone was going to calm down anytime soon. He caught the eye of Germany, who nodded at him as though he understood what America needed.

Which, of course, he did.

Within ten seconds of when Germany started yelling, every nation was back in their seat, looking over at him. Germany finished by telling them to listen to America, who had (oddly) been patiently waiting for them to quiet down.

When all eyes were finally on him, America began to talk. "It's obvious that someone has found out that we are the human personifications of nations. I, the hero, will not rest until I find out who it is!"

Unlike last time, instead of jeering at his hero obsession, the rest of the World Conference members were too worried about what they had just seen to say anything about it. Glad to have silence, America continued with his speech.

"Of course, someone in this room could be telling people about us. Does anyone know anything about that?"

No one came forward. They either didn't know anything, or too scared to say that they did. The seconds passed by very slowly, as if time were moving through syrup.

And then someone stepped forward. As the nations present that day looked back, they remembered that they had either expected it to be this person, or had been completely blindsided by it.

It was Japan.

"I am ashamed to say that I was the one, America-san."

"What?" Italy said. "Why did you do that Japan?"

"The anime writers in my country were out of ideas for new material, so I decided to give them one. It is quite a successful franchise."

"How much do they know?" asked Germany.

"Don't worry; they don't believe that anything I've told them is real. And all they know is what I've told them."

Germany let go of a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "That's good, I suppose."

"Yeah, imagine if they knew we were real! That would totally suck!" America felt relieved, too.

"What about those girls you met, America?" asked England.

"America met some girls?" France asked with a perverted grin on his face. "Do tell."

"They were just some girls I met on the beach; they were the ones who told me about Hetalia."

"What does the word Hetalia mean, anyway?" asked China.

"Hetalia is a mixture of the Japanese words hetare, which means useless, and Italia, which means Italy," said Japan. "So, it basically means 'useless Italy'."

"What? But I'm not useless, am I, Germany?" Italy said, hopefully looking over at Germany.

The nation, unable to produce a good response, just looked away.

"But Germany!" Italy wailed, causing the nations closest to him to cover their ears. "I do a lot of good things! I make white flags, and I cook pasta, and I…" He trailed off, probably realizing that was all he could do.

"None of this matters," France said. "America, tell us more about these girls you met at the beach."

Ignoring France's rape grin, America began to tell the nations about the girls he had met. He gave a short description on each girl's appearance, and also the country they had been nicknamed. The nations who had human counterparts looked doubtful as to how much the girls were like them.

Finally, he got to Olivia.

"And the last one was named Olivia. She's got dark blonde hair that goes to about here," he said as he pointed at a place on his arm that was in between his shoulder and his elbow. "She's about as tall as Britain, so she's pretty short." There was a break in his speech as England sputtered in indignation.

Instead of responding to England as he normally would, he continued. "And she's got these green eyes that look like the ocean, and they're so bright and sparkly and pretty…" He stopped suddenly, realizing what he had just said.

France looked absolutely gleeful when America said that. He laughed and said, "Oh really? Amérique, I believe you have a crush!"

America looked horrified as he replied, "D-dude, that's totally crazy! I don't have a crush on Olivia!"

"Wow, I didn't know your face could be so red!" said Russia, obviously commenting on the fact that America's face was now redder than one of Romano's prized tomatoes.

"You totally have a crush, America!" said Poland in his thick accent.

Some of the other, less mature nations joined in on the teasing, and eventually America had to look to Germany again for silence.

Once the quiet of the room had been reestablished, all eyes were on America, as he pulled himself together to speak once more.

"Okay, you got me," he said, with the air of one who was reluctantly admitting defeat. "I might have a little crush on Olivia."

"I knew it!" France said, giddy with triumph. "The way you talked about her; you would be a fool not to realize your feelings!"

"But what are you going to do about it?" asked Germany. "If you decide to tell her, will you tell her that you are the America from that television show?"

America thought about that for a moment. He actually did like Olivia, even if he didn't want to admit that to himself. But Germany did make a good point. How could he ever hope to have a healthy relationship with her if he never told her the truth about himself? He couldn't go around calling himself "John Smith" whenever he was with her. He wasn't even sure of how much he liked her yet. Maybe it was just a passing feeling. But, then again, maybe it was more than that.

"Wait! You never told us which country she was, America!" said Italy, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Oh yeah! She was mostly like Britain."

"What?" England looked positively bewildered. "You have a crush on the girl that's the most like me? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It doesn't change the way I think of you, if that's what you mean!" America said, looking surprised at England's reaction.

"Well good, because otherwise that would just be weird." England said, switching his focus from America to a fly buzzing angrily around the room.

The room fell into silence, with an occasional short side conversation that was quickly silenced. Realizing nothing else was going to be gained from this meeting, England came back up to the podium and dismissed them all.

America headed back to his car in silence, still wrestling with himself over what to do. If he wanted to be romantically involved with Olivia, he had to tell her he was a country; there was no getting around that. But if he found that he didn't feel the same way about her, then he wouldn't have to worry and he could move on with his life. But he needed to be absolutely sure.

As he drove back to Duluth and to the hotel, he came up with a plan. It wasn't the best plan in the world, but it was good enough for the hero.

Sitting on the bed in his room, America picked up his cell phone and dialed a number he had been thinking about for the past two days.

"Hello?

"Hi Olivia! It's John," he said, managing not to stumble on his fake name.

"Oh, hey John! What's up?"

"I was wondering if you and the others wanted to go out for lunch tomorrow."

"That sounds great, John! I'll talk to them and let you know what they say!"

"Awesome! Bye!"

"Bye!"

He hung up, putting his phone back in his pocket. Letting out a breath he didn't know he had, he turned to the window.

Phase One was complete. Now all he had to do was make it through tomorrow, Phase Two.

* * *

**And now I have to think of a plot for Chapter Five.**

**So, I am going to my favorite state, Minnesota, in three days! Yay! **

**I'll try to have Chapter 5 up by the time I leave, seeing as updating times are going to be pretty thin on the ground.**

**Until next time!**


	6. Micky D's

**Well, here it is. The product of an all-nighter forced on me by my awesome Hetalia friends. It's almost six in the morning as I type this. I started this at about eleven, but was constantly distracted. **

**So, don't blame me if it's crap! Blame Aubrey! (one of my friends)**

* * *

I hung up with John and called my other friends to inform them of this new turn in events, one at a time. Except Megan. As we were currently living under the same roof, all I had to do was walk over to the next room to tell her about it. They all seemed pretty excited. I guess they all liked John.**(A/N: My friend just gave me some Polish tea. She wants it to inspire me to write more. It's pink.)**

Then I realized we didn't know where to meet John. So, I called him back.

"Oh, I thought we could go to McDonald's!" he said when I asked him where to go.

I didn't really like McDonald's, but whatever. I didn't feel like calling everybody again, so I sent a mass text out instead. I got replies in the affirmative back pretty much instantaneously, so we were all set to go for tomorrow.

* * *

I slept in the next day, and I didn't get up until about eleven. Dragging myself out of bed, I pulled on a regular T-shirt and a a pair of dark wash jeans. I walked into the room Megan was sleeping in and turned on the light. She didn't get up. I walked over to the side of her bed and prepared myself to do something that would likely result in my death.

I screamed in her ear.

Now, I don't know if you know much about Megan (probably not a lot), but she hates, and I mean _hates _being woken up by anyone except herself. I remember this one sleepover we had, years ago, when we all pulled an all-nighter; except for Megan. We tried to wake her up at about three, but, as I recall, we ended up being chased around the house for the next several hours by her, and she was armed with a toilet plunger and duct tape.

It was not a pretty night. Let's just say that Kaylee and I had to rescue Grace. Several times. Taylor and Hannah were holding up our permanent base in the bathroom.

Back to the present.

Megan reacted so fast that I didn't have any time to get out of the way. Her arm shot up and caught me in the eye.

"Ow! Megan!" I exclaimed as I rubbed my eye. It really hurt, and I was sure a bruise was already starting to form.

"Well, that's what you get for screaming in my ear!" she said as she pulled back the covers and sat up. "You know I hate being woken up."

"Yeah, I guess," I said, backing away from her. "Hurry up and get dressed, I'll see what my mom made for breakfast."

"Okay, Mrs. Bossy-pants." I left the room and headed down the stairs towards the kitchen, from which I could smell the enticing aroma of french toast. Yum.

"Hey Mom! That smells good!"

"Thanks, Olivia!" she said, smiling at me as she plopped a few pieces of toast onto a plate. "How long do you have before you need to meet your friend?"

"I don't know, maybe an hour or so?"

"Ok! Well, at least have some breakfast before you go! Is Megan up yet?"

"Yep," came the reply from the stairs. Megan showed up and made a beeline for the french toast, picking up two pieces and grabbing the syrup and powdered sugar from the counter.

"Jeez Megan, don't forget we're having lunch in an hour!"

"I'll be hungry again. Don't worry."

Sighing to myself, I picked up a piece of toast and sat down at the breakfast nook next to Megan. I stole the maple syrup and turned it upside down on the toast, watching the deliciousness pour down all over my food.

"Enough syrup there, Olivia?" Megan asked with a sly grin on her face.

"Shut up!" I said, lightly punching her in the arm. She didn't even flinch. "Like you don't eat more than I do any day!"

"Well I, unlike you, have a fast metabolism," she said, grinning at me.

"Well you, unlike me, are a glutton!"

"Lame comeback, Olivia," she said, giving me that sly grin again. "Late comeback."

We ate the rest of our breakfast still teasing each other. After we finished, we still had about half an hour until we needed to leave, so we turned on the TV and channel surfed. As I recall, we watched snippets of a rerun of Friends, part of Titanic, and we watched several minutes of Man vs. Food. Soon we realized it was time to go. I looked in the mirror before leaving to see if I really did have a bruise. Surprisingly, I didn't. There was no hint of any sort of violence from Megan there.

Still feeling slightly full, I tried to burn as much energy as I could by dancing on the way to the car in the garage.

"What are you doing?" Megan asked as she got into the passenger seat of the car.

"I'm getting myself hungry."

"Well, hurry up."

I did some more jumping jacks and felt that I had burned enough energy for one day. I got into the driver's seat and pulled out of the lot, heading towards the town's McDonald's.

The weather today was clear and bright, nothing like the horrible fog of a few days before. I liked the fact that I could actually see the road in front of me.

Pulling into the McDonald's, I saw that everybody else's cars were already there. I pulled into an empty space, and the two of us walked inside. We were greeted by the smell of grease, hamburgers, and ketchup.

I saw the other girls and John standing by one of the cash registers. He saw us and waved us over to them.

"Hey guys! You're just in time, we were just about to order!"

I looked up at the menu, looking over the choices. The only thing that really looked good to me was the ranch BLT, so I got that.

Everyone else just got a hamburger. Well, except for Megan, who got a salad, and John, who got two Big Macs and a large fry.

Our trays laden with food, we headed to a table in the back corner of the room and sat down around it. It was a circular booth, and I somehow ended up it the middle, squished next to John. Maybe attempting to fit seven people at one table was a bad idea.

John didn't seem to mind, however. He just grabbed his food and started chowing down. My friends and I watched in awe as he devoured both Big Macs and his fries in less than five minutes. Even more surprising than that, he still looked hungry, and asked for a few of my fries.

"Man," I said, leaning over to Megan, who was on my left side. "He puts you to shame."

"No kidding," she said back to me. "He makes me look like a freakin' anorexic!"

We kept eating, ignoring the looks on the other customer's faces as John kept going back up to the register for more food. Was this guy a national championship eater or something?

It was then that I realized I really didn't know a lot about John. I knew he was about our age, I knew his name, and, apparently, he really liked McDonald's and eating. How did he manage to stay so skinny? He must have had a steel metabolism.

He came back after his third run, and I decided to start learning more about him. So, I asked the first question that came to my mind.

"Hey John, what's your favorite color?" Yeah, I know, it's a stupid question. I said it was the first thing that came to my mind, didn't I?

"Ha, I like the colors red, white, and blue!"

"You're pretty patriotic, aren't you?" asked Kaylee.

"Oh yeah! I love America! America is awesome!"

Well, something has to be said for patriotism.

"I actually have some questions for you, Olivia!" he said in his cheerful voice.

"Shoot,"I said as I took a sip of my Coke.

"What's _your _favorite color?" he asked. I looked at him, eyebrows raised, but decided to answer it anyway.

"Well, I like the color purple," I said. "Or blue, or green. Really, any of the cool toned colors."

"Cool! Ok, what do you usually like to do on Tuesday nights?"

"Um," I thought about that for a moment. "Well, during the summer, I usually just sit around at home and watch movies. Nothing really exciting. I don't have a job for the summer yet."

"Awesome!" he said, giving me a big grin. "One more question: Do you want to go out on a date with me this Tuesday?"

I froze, looking at him in surprise. John liked me? He actually, legitimately liked me? Wow, I had no idea. Was it obvious? It probably was, I was just oblivious. I was like that sometimes. More importantly, did I like him enough to accept his offer? I thought about him for a moment. He was pretty nice, a little spazzy, but nice. He was cute, too. And I couldn't shake that feeling that I knew him from somewhere, even though I had never met him before.

It was with only a slight doubt in the back of my mind that I turned towards him and said, with a slight smile on my face, "Yes, I think I'd like that."

He broke into a huge smile, larger than any I'd ever seen before. "Dude, that's awesome! I'll pick you up at six, ok?"

"Ok!" I said cheerfully.

On that happy note, we continued to eat. Surprisingly, neither John nor I got teased by the members of our group for what had just transpired. Pretty soon we were done, and we all walked out to the waiting cars together.

I looked back at John, who still seemed ridiculously happy. I laughed to myself as I got into the car with Megan, who insisted on driving for once. I thought about the coming Tuesday, and what could possibly happen on that day. I had three more days to suffer through.

Time to start waiting.

* * *

***yawns* Alright, I am officially on break from this fanfiction. **

**Unless I get time to write in Minnesota.**

**So, this could very well be the last chapter until mid-July.**

**One of my friends just went _NOOOOOOOOOOOOO~! _**

**It was funny.**

**Bye, ya'll.**


	7. The Revelation

**Wow, I can't believe I just wrote this. I wasn't planning on writing anything in this story for while. I just felt an urge while getting ready to leave tomorrow.**

**And, this chapter is slightly fluffy and cheesy. Just bear with it. It needed to happen.**

**Wow, I keep forgetting to do Disclaimers, so here you go.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia, and will never own it. All she owns are her OCs and the plot of this story.**

* * *

I woke up on Tuesday morning, my mind buzzing with excitement. Pulling back the curtain covering my closet, I looked through all my clothes, trying to decide what to wear.

Yes, I know that I sounded like a total girly-girl there, but that's not who I usually am, as you would know if you paid attention to what I say. I was just nervous, and excited. I wanted to look good for this date. With a guy I had only met twice. Who I was totally sure wasn't a serial killer.

Wow, that got weird fast. Anyway, back to the story.

I finally decided on one of my nicer shirts that was all blue, and felt really soft. I paired that with a pair of unmarked jeans, and decided that was best. No need to be overly fancy.

My mom was out for the day with a few of her friends, and Dad was at work, so it was just Megan and I until John came to pick me up. I had to wake her up again, but I was smart about it this time. Don't want another black eye now, do we?

I pulled out my IPod and my IHome and plugged it into the outlet closest to Megan's room. I pushed the IPod into it and played a random song. I probably should have looked at the song before I turned the volume on. It was Miley Cyrus, and Megan _hated _Miley Cyrus. With a fiery passion.

Pretty soon I heard Megan yelling from her room. The music was so loud I couldn't hear what she was saying. I turned it off and waited for her to come out of the room.

When she did, she was _mad. _

She looked at me with a fire in her eyes that I had never seen before. I backed up slightly, before I realized I was now against a wall.

She walked closer to me, and I suddenly felt very scared. So, I ran away. Fast.

I retreated out of the house and went into my backyard, where I hid behind some bushes. I was getting my shirt and jeans dirty, but I didn't really care. Hiding from Megan, when she was this angry, was much more important.

I sat there for a few minutes before I realized that Megan was probably gone. I cautiously walked back inside (in case she decided she wanted to attack me while my guard was down), and found her sitting at the breakfast nook, eating cereal. I went to the fridge and got my own bowl. I poured myself some Cinnamon Toast Crunch and sat next to her.

"Please don't kill me," I said while taking a spoonful of the cereal.

"Oh, it's ok, I won't. Just never do it again."

"I promise." And I had every intention to keep that promise. I didn't need a scary Megan on my hands.

After breakfast was over, I checked my watch. It read 10:47. A little over seven hours until John came over. What was I supposed to do until then?

Almost as if she could read my mind, Megan called to me from the kitchen. "Hey, why don't we play some violent video games? That always seems to pass the time!"

We went out to the living room and turned on the X-Box. Yes, I'm not afraid to admit it. I am a 20-year old woman who still plays Call of Duty in her spare time. Is there something wrong with that?

I selected Cooperative Mode, and for the next several hours, we were slaughtering members of the Axis Powers' army. My mind connected that to Hetalia, and I started laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked Megan, who was currently reviving me.

"Oh, I suddenly thought of all the soldiers as Germany."

She started laughing, too, and lost track of what she was doing.

"MEGAN! KEEP REVIVING ME!"

"Oh! Right! Sorry!"

Eventually we were exhausted from staring at a screen, and stopped playing. I looked at my watch again and this time it read 2:16. Four more hours. At least we could have lunch now.

Not trusting myself anywhere near the kitchen, I let Megan handle the food. She came out with Mac N' Cheese, one of my favorite lunch foods.

"Thanks, Megan," I said as I took the first bite.

"Oh, you're very welcome, Miss I Can't Cook to Save My Life."

"You know very well I can't! Remember that time in ninth grade cooking class, and I tried to make cinnamon rolls?"

"Yes, and then we ended up not being able to use that stove for the rest of the year! Wow, you were such a bad cook!"

I sighed into my bowl of Mac N' Cheese and ate some more of it. Megan sat next to me and took a bite out of hers, too. After she had finished about half of it, she looked over at me. "You're pretty nervous, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess I am." I looked down into my bowl. I had hardly eaten any of the noodles.

"I'm sure you guys will have a great time," she said, clearing away my bowl and putting it in the sink. "You still have about three and a half hours until John's supposed to show up, so why don't we watch some TV?"

"Ok. Put on Animal Planet." She obliged.

I went and sat next to her on the couch. Untamed and Uncut was on, and I kept myself distracted by watching people getting clobbered by bulls and bitten by snakes. We had stumbled upon a marathon, and we sat there the whole time with our eyes glued to the TV screen.

I had totally lost track of what time it was when the doorbell rang. I jumped about a foot into the air, and had Megan answer it while I fixed my hair in my room one last time. I could hear them downstairs.

"Hey Megan! Where's Olivia?"

"Oh, she's upstairs. She'll be down in a second."

I finished up, and, taking a deep breath, walked down the stairs.

"Oh, hi Olivia!" John said when he saw me. "You look nice!"

I smiled at him. "You look nice, too. Where are we going?" I figured we'd be going to a restaurant or something.

"It's a surprise!" he said as he took my hand and pulled me out to his car. I looked back at Megan as I got in.

"You two have fun!" she cried. "Bring her home before midnight, John!"

We laughed and I shut the door. John pulled out of the driveway and started driving away from downtown and more towards the outskirts of the suburbs. I didn't know where he was taking me, so I just relaxed and let him drive.

Soon we came upon a small, grassy field in the middle of nowhere, trees surrounding it on all sides. John stopped the car, and he got out and headed to the back. I opened my door and got out, watching him.

He pulled out a big blanket and a basket. Oh, we were going to have a picnic. Fun. He then set the blanket down on the grass and looked over at me. I was still standing awkwardly by the car.

"Hey dude, come over here and sit down!" he said, gesturing to a spot on the blanket next to him. I walked over to the blanket and sat down on it. He opened the basket, and inside were several food items. He had packed a covered bowl of potato chips, some sandwiches that just looked like chilled hamburgers, and an apple pie, which looked delicious.

"Did you make that pie?" I asked, leaning in to the basket. The smell of the pie wafted up to me, and it smelled delicious.

"Yep! I made the sandwiches, too! Do you want some?" he asked, picking up a sandwich and eating it in two bites. He picked up another one. I had forgotten about his strange eating habits.

"Yeah." I had just realized how hungry I was. I picked up one of the sandwiches and took a bite. "Wow, it tastes almost exactly like a hamburger!"

"I know, dude! That's why I made them! I love hamburgers!"

"I could tell by the way you were eating them at McDonald's on Friday."

"I love pretty much anything from McDonald's!" he said, grabbing yet another sandwich. He took a handful of chips, too, and managed to stuff them in his mouth along with the sandwich. He must have had a magical mouth.

"How do you do that?" I asked, as he swallowed.

"Do what?"

"Eat like that!" I said. "You stuffed an entire sandwich _and _a handful of chips in your mouth at once! I didn't even think that was humanely possible!"

"I call it a gift," he said, smiling at me, before turning to the sky. "What time is it?"

I looked down at my watch again. "It's almost seven."

"Wow, already? Man, the time went by so fast!" I looked over at him, surprised to see that he looked a little nervous. He'd seemed fine just a few minutes ago.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked. He jumped a little bit and turned to look at me.

"Oh, sorry. I was just spacing out for a moment. I'm fine!" I wasn't too sure. He looked at the sky again and was silent. After a minute or so, he turned to me.

"Hey, you know that show you showed me at the beach a week ago? Hetalia?"

"Yeah?" I was glad for the change of subject.

"What do you think of the character America?"

"America?" I asked, eyebrows furrowed. I thought about that for a moment. Knowing I could (probably) trust John to keep whatever I told him a secret, I decided to tell him the full, embarrassing, truth. "Well, truthfully, when I was younger, I was completely and utterly obsessed with him. He was my favorite character. I used to fantasize about him all the time." Man, it felt good to get that off my chest. My friends had never known about that, and I intended to keep it that way. I didn't need them to tease me about a feeling I'd had years and years ago.

For some reason, John was grinning. What did I say that made him smile like that?"

"Why are you smiling?"

"Oh, no reason."

I turned my head into the sky and looked up at it. It was getting late, but, because it was summer, the sky was still pretty light. I still wondered why John was suddenly so happy.

"Actually," he said, leaning closer to me. "I have to tell you something really important, and you can't tell anyone."

"What?" I was still looking at the sky.

"My real name isn't John Smith."

To say that shocked me was an understatement. Why did he give me a fake name? Was he on the run from the law or something? Was he a serial killer? However, on the outside, I looked completely calm, and unfazed by what he said.

"What's your real name, then?" My heart was beating really loudly in my chest. I was almost sure he could hear it.

"My real name is Alfred F. Jones."

For a second, it felt as if my heart stopped beating. During that second, a million crazy thought went through my head. He must be lying. Hetalia wasn't real. There was no Alfred F. Jones. There was no America. Maybe this was a dream, and I was imagining all of this. He couldn't be real, could he? He just couldn't!

He could obviously sense the thoughts going on in my head, because he grabbed my hand and said, "Look into my eyes."

I did as he said, not really paying attention to my actions. And as I looked into those beautiful blue eyes of his, a vision began in my mind.

A young child, who looked sort of like John, was being held by an older man who was about as tall as me with blonde hair and bright green eyes. I felt as if I knew this man from somewhere, as well. The child was sleeping, and he looked so cute.

The older man spoke in a British accent. "Oh, you're asleep." The vision changed.

I saw John, or Alfred, or whoever the hell he was standing in a military uniform, with a large army behind him, facing the same man I had seen in the previous vision, who was backed up by his own army. He looked like he hadn't aged a day, even though it had obviously been years since the previous vision. Were those Revolutionary War uniforms?

"I just want freedom!" John cried.

"Never!" yelled the other one back at him. I wanted John to keep resisting. I found myself sold on his cause even though I didn't really know what it was. The vision changed once more.

I knew this scene. I would know it anywhere. John stood at the front of a room filled with people, and he was talking about a superhero and global warming.

It was the opening scene of Hetalia.

I kept watching, noticing the little details that fit in all the right pieces. The British man from before was sipping tea, and he was sitting next to a man with a French accent who had long blonde hair and blue eyes. There was a Chinese man with a ponytail, and a Japanese man with dark, black hair. All the countries were there.

This could only mean one thing. My brain didn't want to acknowledge it, but here it was, laid out in front of me.

John was telling the truth. He was Alfred F. Jones. He was _America. _And, for some strange reason, I felt attracted to him.

The vision faded, and I found myself facing him again. He looked back at me with a hesitant smile.

"America," I whispered, still staring at his face. Why hadn't I noticed the likeness between the anime character and him before?

"Yep!" he said cheerfully, staring back at me unfazed. He took both my hands in his, and a sudden, odd seriousness came over his face. "And I will _always, _no matter what, be your hero."

He leaned in, and before I knew it, I was leaning in, too. Our lips connected. I wasn't even surprised. It was like I had always known I was going to kiss him, from the moment I was born. This felt _right. _

Too soon, we pulled away, and I was looking into his perfect blue eyes once more. I realized what I had said to him before I knew he was America.

"Oh god! I said I was obsessed with you! Oh, this is so embarrassing!" I said, blushing for the first time in a while.

He laughed, and said, "Dude, it's ok! But I still can't believe you didn't figure it out before!"

He was right. Oh, I felt like such an idiot! It was so obvious, looking back on it. I mean, his favorite colors were red, white, and blue? He said "Dude" all the time? He could eat like there was no tomorrow? He loved McDonald's, and hamburgers? It was plain as a sheet of blank paper.

"I feel so stupid, not noticing it before."

"Aww, don't! I probably wouldn't have figured it out, either!"

"Wait, is that why you asked me what I thought of America?"

"Maybe," he said, grinning evilly at me.

"Ugg!" I said, turning away from him in mock disgust. "I hate you!"

"You didn't seem to hate me a few minutes ago!" he said while laughing.

I turned back to him and rolled my eyes, laughing. "Whatever, America. Should I call you America, or Alfred?"

"I'd rather you call me America. I use it more often!"

"And how are we going to tell my friends? And yes, before you say anything, we are going to tell my friends." They had to know. I wasn't going to be able to keep this from them.

"I don't know, but we're gonna have to think of something."

"Agreed. I don't want to refer to you as John every time I talk about you."

"Yeah. It felt weird, being called John by you guys," America said. "Well, come on, we'd better eat this pie and get you home before midnight."

"Yeah, you definitely don't want to risk the wrath of Megan," I said, laughing. "She can be as scary as Russia when she's mad."

America shivered as he took a huge slice of pie. "That must be terrifying, dude."

"Oh, it is," I said, as I grabbed my own piece.

We finished off the pie and drove back to my house, talking about the other countries. It was amazing for me to think of them as real people, and not just characters in an anime.

I was sad when we pulled into the driveway, but I got over it when I thought about seeing him again. I knew I would. He walked me to the front door, and leaned in to give me a quick goodbye kiss before he walked back to his car.

I walked in my house to find my mom, my dad, and Megan all assembled in the front room, waiting for me.

"So," said Megan. "How was your date with John?"

I resisted the urge to correct her, and smiled broadly as I said, "Pretty freaking fantastic."

She smiled back at me, and then dragged me up to my room so I could dish more freely. But all I could think of was America, and the fact that he was real.

* * *

**SO. FLUFFY.**

**Yeah, so I'm done with this for a while. I have ideas for the next chapter, but they're going to stay ideas for a while.**

**So, enjoy this oddly long chapter until then.**


	8. Wait, what?

**Wow, this chapter is huge. It also took me forever.**

**Because I have pushy friends, I decided to write this chapter and post it to appease them, and you guys. So, here you go.**

* * *

So, apparently Olivia and John had something really important to tell us. I hoped it wasn't that they were dating. I mean, they'd only been on a couple of dates. I asked her what happened on the first one, but the only person she told was Megan. So I was pretty curious.

It was Saturday afternoon, and we were all driving over to Olivia's house for the "big news". She said that none of us, not even Megan, knew what it was. Which made me pretty sure it wasn't that they were dating. So, what was it?

I finally got there and knocked on the door. Megan answered, and I saw that we were still waiting for Hannah. While we waited, I watched Olivia, Taylor, Megan, and John play against each other in Call of Duty. Grace and I stayed off to the side; we're really not that good at those games.

After Hannah showed up, we were all gathered in the living room, sitting on the comfortable chairs. Olivia and John looked pretty happy to be revealing whatever news they were about to share with us. Megan leaned over to me and whispered, "I honestly have no idea what they're going to say."

"Hey, do you know if they're actually dating?" I whispered back. What? I was curious.

"Definitely. I could tell."

"Hey, what are you two whispering about?" Olivia asked, looking at us with a disapproving face.

"Nothing," we said together.

"Ok," she said, looking at us skeptically. She turned back to the room at large. "Ok, so J-john and I have some pretty frickin' unbelievable, incredible news to share with you guys."

Whoa. Olivia's vocabulary was usually cleaner than most eleven year olds. And why did she stumble on John's name like that? Olivia was usually so calm and collected. Whatever this news was, it was pretty important.

"Are you okay, Olivia?" Taylor asked, voicing the concern that I felt. "You seem nervous."

"I'm fine," she said bluntly. "I really don't know if I should be the one to tell you guys about this, so why don't you, John?"

We all turned to look at him. Unlike Olivia, he was his total, normal self. In fact, he looked really, really happy. Of course, John always looked happy, so that was pretty normal.

"Ok!" he said. "So, you know that show you guys showed me on the beach, Hetalia?"

"Yeah," we all said at once, still confused about where this was going.

"Well, and this might be pretty hard to believe," he said, leading us on.

"What, John?" Megan said, obviously annoyed at him.

"First of all, John is not his real name," Olivia blurted out. She must have been frustrated with how long John was taking to tell us, too.

"Wait, what?" Grace asked. I was thinking the same thing. If John wasn't John, hen who was he? Why hadn't Olivia told us about this the second she found out?

"Yeah, that's true," Not-John said. "My real name's actually Alfred F. Jones, but you can just call me America."

Wait, what?

"No way," said Megan, as surprised as I was. "That is not possible. You're playing a prank on us, aren't you? Are there hidden cameras anywhere?"

"John, y-you can't be America, because Hetalia doesn't exist." Grace was trying to be calm, while inside, I was pretty sure she was freaking out, like I was.

On the outside, I looked perfectly calm, and I had a completely straight face going the entire time.

Inside my head, the two halves of my mind (rational and irrational), were having an intense battle.

_That's not America, Hetalia isn't real, _said the rational side.

_But just think about it for a moment. Hasn't he always seemed familiar to you? _answered the irrational side.

_Sure, but that just happens sometimes, right?_

_What about his appearance? He looks just like America._

_So? A lot of people have blond hair and blue eyes._

_What about his actions? He says Dude all the time, and he loves McDonald's._

_Again, a lot of people like McDonald's._

_Do those people eat several platefuls of Big Macs in the time it takes you to eat one hamburger?_

For once, the rational side shut up.

_Yeah, exactly. _

So, while everyone else was freaking out and shouting their doubts to the living room, I was slowly and surely convincing myself it was the truth. Olivia looked worried, she was probably resigned to the fact that none of us believed her and John- no, America.

"Just for the record," I said, projecting my voice over everyone else's. "I believe you guys."

"Whoa, really?" America said. I nodded at him.

"Are you serious? You actually believe them?" Megan said. "Wow Kaylee, you're more gullible than I thought."

"Yes, I believe them, and you should too."

"But why? Where's the proof?"

"Megan, the proof is in everything we know about America," I said, ready to launch into a long-winded explanation. Luckily, Olivia saved me the trouble.

"I didn't believe him at first, either, but, then again, I was persuaded in a pretty unique way," she said, grinning at America.

"Totally." I wondered what that was about.

"How so?" Megan asked.

"Why don't you show her, America?" Olivia said.

"Ha, ok!" he said, obviously pleased. "Ok, Megan, you have to look into my eyes."

Reluctantly, she did so, and her eyes instantly glazed over, and she was left with an oddly blank look on her face.

"What's going on?" I asked Olivia.

"Oh, America's showing Megan some events from his past. He showed me when England found him in the meadow, the Revolutionary War, and the World Conference from the first episode of Hetalia. That was the one that proved it for me."

"Really? That's so cool!"

"I know, right?" she said. "I have no idea how long this will take, though."

It ended up lasting for about five minutes. When she snapped out of it, she looked at America like he wasn't crazy, and said she had to sit down for a minute.

"What happened, Megan?" asked Grace.

"Are you ok?" Taylor asked.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," she said, a bit shakily. She turned to America. "I-I believe you now."

"It would be pretty hard not to," Olivia said. "What did you show her?" she asked America.

"Same thing I showed you."

"Wait, so does this mean you're dating your own country, Olivia?" Megan asked, an evil grin on her face. "A little weird, if you ask me."

"Oh, shut up, Megan!" Olivia yelled at her. But she couldn't hide her smile.

"So, you guys believe us now, don't you?" America asked the three who hadn't spoken up; Hannah, Grace, and Taylor.

"Yeah," they said.

"That's great, because we're holding another World Conference tomorrow, and all you guys are totally coming!"

Olivia gasped. "Really?" she asked, a hopeful smile on her face. "We get to meet the other countries?"

"Well, yeah! They already know about you guys, so we're all good!"

"Wait, what?" Olivia exclaimed. "You told them about us? When did that happen?"

"Two days after I met you guys. I called up Britain, and we scheduled a World Conference. I told them there."

"Oh," said Olivia. "Ok. Well, you guys up for it?"

"Yeah," said Hannah.

"Let's do this!" said Taylor.

"Ooh! Can I meet Italy?" said Grace.

"I'm excited," added Megan.

"Kaylee?" asked Olivia, looking at me. I was the only one who hadn't responded.

"Sign me up!" I said with a grin.

* * *

Sunday dawned cloudy and rainy, and all in all just a crappy day. It took me almost a full minute to remember why I was so happy. Then I finally did.

We were going to the World Conference today, and I would get to meet all the other countries. I was pretty excited.

We were all going to carpool to the conference (to make sure we were all there at the same time) using Grace's family van from many years ago. It was really old, but it could fit all seven of us. We were departing from Grace's house, so I go in my car and drove over there.

I was the last one there, so they were all standing out by the van waiting for me. I parked my car on the curb and walked over to them.

"God, what took you so long, Kaylee?" asked Megan.

"I got up late, that's all," I said. "Can we go?"

"Yeah, don't want to be late!" said America.

He insisted on driving-"The Hero always drives!"- and we got there about a minute late. Great. Just what I needed. We were already going to be stared at. And now we were going to be walking in late, too.

"Come on!" America said as he led us into the building. We were somewhere in Minneapolis, and that was pretty much all I knew. I didn't really go out of the Duluth area very often. The building itself was fairly boring, just a long hallway with a door at the end. We followed America to the door, and he stopped just before opening it.

"Ready?" he asked, giving us a little grin.

"Yeah, yeah, just open the door," Megan said. He did.

As soon as the door was opened, everyone in the room turned to look at us. America pushed us in the room, followed us in, and shut the door. There was no way to escape from the stares from the countries in the room. I let my eyes wander around the room to distract myself. I could name them all by sight. There was Greece, practically asleep in his seat. There was Germany, rigid and stiff, looking us over. I could name practically every country in the room.

England approached us first. As he walked closer to us, I noticed something about him, which I leaned over and told to Olivia.

"He has pretty eyes," I whispered. And he did. They were an emerald green, and they looked so deep and knowledgeable.

"Yeah, too bad your mom wants ginger grandchildren," she whispered back. I blushed furiously. I couldn't believe she remembered that I told her that. Unluckily for me, not only did England see me blush, but France did, too.

"Why are you blushing?" he asked, giving me a really perverted smile. "Can you not resist my charms?"

"Shove it, France," Olivia said. He turned to her instead.

"Ah, so you are the one _Amérique _has a crush on," he said. "My, you do have pretty eyes."

"Shut your mouth, Frog." She wasn't taking any crap from France, and I loved her for that. He ignored her and walked over to Taylor, who visibly stiffened.

"And what about you, _ma chérie_?" he said to her. "You are a _belle fille, non?"_

Taylor giggled. Taylor actually giggled at something France said. What was wrong with her?

"You're not too bad, yourself." Again, what? She did realize that this was _France _we were talking to, right? This was the prime member of the Bad Touch Trio. What was she doing, flirting back with him? Oh, she was crazy. No doubt.

"Would you like to come with me? I can show you something I'm sure you've _never _seen before." Oh man, that was it. I wasn't going to let this progress any further. Luckily for me, Hannah was already on it.

She was taking off the scar that she always wore, which made the people around her back away very slowly. The countries around us, America, France, and England, didn't know what was going to happen, but they took their clues from the fact that us girls had all gone completely quiet, staring at Hannah.

She folded up her scarf a few times so it was significantly smaller and thicker. I felt a strong sense of foreboding. I knew what she was doing. I had seen her do this to a guy who didn't leave her alone back in tenth grade. It wasn't pretty, what he looked like afterwards.

France didn't know what was going on, so he stupidly stood still as the scarf was folded up. Big mistake. I would have been running away as fast as possible, and I wouldn't have looked back. But _no._ France had to just stand there and watch as a beating was delivered.

Within ten seconds from when Hannah had started attacking France, he was on the ground, crying and screaming for mercy. It was pathetic, yet funny at the same time.

"_Miséricorde, miséricorde, _mercy, merci!" he cried. Hannah stepped back, smirking. But Olivia wasn't ready to be done with him yet. She picked up a chair from the nearby table and brought it down on France's head, knocking him out cold. Score one for the friend team!

"Guys, what did you do that for?" Taylor whined.

"Taylor, you were _flirting _with the _frog." _Olivia said with a slightly disgusted expression on her face. "Come on, even you can do better than that."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Taylor asked.

"So you're the one that is apparently the most like me?" England asked Olivia, attempting to dissolve a bit of the tension in the room.

"Yeah. I suck at cooking, so it totally fits." Ouch.

"W-what?" he said with indignation. "My cooking is much better than the others make it out to be!"

"Well, maybe we'll have to try it sometime," Taylor said. She already seemed to be over the France incident.

"No! Taylor, you'll die!" Megan yelled.

"You know, English food isn't actually that bad," said Taylor.

"Y-you really think so?" England stammered.

"Yeah! I love fish and chips!"

"Hey, is that Italy over there?" Grace asked me, pointing to someone standing next to Germany. I looked at him. He had auburn hair, and his eyes were halfway closed. He had a hair curl going off the side of his face.

"Yep, that's him," I said to her. "Who else could it be?"

Without saying anything to me, she walked right over to him and introduced herself. I couldn't hear what was said, but pretty soon they were giving each other the biggest hugs I had ever seen. It was really cute. Pretty soon, it was getting awkwardly long, and Taylor had to go help Germany pry them apart.

Hannah, meanwhile, had gone over to say hi to Russia He seemed quite interested in her after what had happened with France. Was it creepy that he seemed proud? I walked a little closer and heard the dreaded words:

"You will become one with Mother Russia, da?"

Hannah started laughing. Russia looked taken aback by that. He was used to people running away or screaming in terror when he said that, not laughing. I didn't stick around to hear what was said next, but I'm sure it was hilarious. I was too busy watching Megan and Switzerland meet each other.

"Hey," Megan said. "Nice gun."

"Thank you," he replied.

"Can I see your peace prize?"

He looked taken aback at the question, but pulled it out anyway. It was shiny, and it had a long chain attached to it, which probably made it easier to hit people with.

"Very nice," Megan said.

Everyone else had met up with their country, so where was mine? Where was Hungary?

Almost as soon as I thought that, I spotted her, sitting in between Austria and….Prussia.

I made sure to keep my face completely calm and emotionless, but that wasn't anything close to what was going on in my head.

_Is that...? O.M.G. IT'S PRUSSIA! GILBERT! I'MGONNADIEOFAWESOME! HOLYFRYINGPANONASTICK! Ok… Ok… Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Stay calm. Ok…_

"Hey look, it's one of those people that un-awesome America was talking about!" Prussia said, walking over to me and holding out his hand. "I'm the Awesome Prussia, by the way."

I took his hand, not looking away from his face. "H-hi. I'm Kaylee."

"Prussia, leave the poor girl alone, she doesn't need to be near you and your self-proclaimed awesomeness right now," Hungary said, pushing Prussia out of the way. He walked away, frowning.

"So, I heard that you were the one most like America, but you think you're most like me," she said.

"Oh, I am so much more like you. The others just refuse to acknowledge that."

"Have you tried threatening them with a frying pan? That always seems to work for me."

"You know what, I actually haven't. I need to get one of those to carry around with me. What kind do you recommend?"

"You should get the type that is small and light, but is really dense. That way, you can carry it around with you everywhere and be able to whack Prussia on the head with it at any time!"

I laughed. It was fun to talk to Hungary. It made me certain that I was much more like her than America.

Olivia came over to me. "Kaylee, can you _please _tell America that I don't like hamburgers? He doesn't believe me."

"Oh, sure." I walked over to where Olivia had been standing with America and England. "America, I can state, for a fact, that Olivia has never liked cheeseburgers. Not even a little bit."

"But how can you not like cheeseburgers?" he whined, looking at Olivia. "They're so delicious, especially with American cheese."

"Sorry America, but your cheese sucks," I said. "I would much rather have Switzerland's cheese."

"So would I," Olivia added. "Sorry, America."

"Olivia!" he cried. "You're my girlfriend! You're supposed to be on my side about this!"

I cringed when he said "Girlfriend". I mean, their first date was less than a week ago!

"I hate to break it to you, America," Olivia said with a smirk. "But I would prefer tea and scones over a cheeseburger any day."

"Really? You mean it?" England asked, perking up at the mention of someone actually liking his food.

"Fish and chips really aren't that bad, either," Megan added. I turned around. I hadn't even noticed her coming up behind me!

England looked like he could kiss Megan. I'm glad he didn't. That would have been…weird.

"Oh, and America?" Megan asked in a menacing tone, stepping closer to him.

"W-what?" he asked, his voice a bit shaky.

"If you hurt Olivia in any way, shape, or form, physically or mentally, you will have to answer to me. I will borrow one of Switzerland's guns if I have to."

He gulped. Not that I blamed him. Megan could be a lot like Switzerland sometimes. She was so overprotective of the people she cared about, just like Switzerland was so overprotective of Liechtenstein.

"I, uh, I-"

"Megan, don't scare him off!" Olivia chastised. "Besides, we'll be fine, right, America?"

"Y-yeah!"

Ha. I had never seen "The Hero" get so scared.

"Shouldn't we start the meeting soon?" Megan asked. I looked around. No one was in their seats, except or Greece, but he was sleeping. Megan, Olivia and I were over here talking to America and England, Taylor and Grace were talking to Germany, Italy, and Romano (who did _not _look happy to be so close to Germany), and Hannah was still talking to Russia, but now the Baltic States, too. They all, especially Latvia, looked pretty scared of her. Anyone who got along that well with Russia just after meeting him was bad news in their minds. The rest of the countries who weren't talking to a human were just standing around, talking amongst themselves.

"It's like they've all forgotten we were supposed to be doing something," I said.

"Oh, don't worry, this usually happens," England said. Man, he had pretty eyes. "The only reason we weren't already talking when you got here was that we were all so anxious to meet you."

"Greece doesn't look so excited," Megan pointed out. He was still snoring away, completely oblivious to the world around him.

"He's always like that," America was finally getting over his fear of Megan. "It's totally not cool."

"Hey, is that Canada over in the corner?" Olivia said. I followed her finger and saw him, just holding Kumijarou and sitting in the corner.

"Wait, who?" England asked, looking around.

"Canada. He's just over there," I said, pointing to him.

"Oh, oh that's right," England muttered.

"Come on," I said to Megan and Olivia. We came over to where Canada was sitting. He looked up, surprised to see the three of us staring at him.

"Oh, h-hi," he whispered. I could barely hear him. No wonder the other countries hardly noticed him.

"Hi, Canada!" Olivia said, holding out her hand. He slowly took it and shook it gingerly.

"So, are you the girls that America was talking about?" I had to strain my ears to hear what he was saying.

"Yep," I said. "I'm Kaylee, the taller one's Megan, and this is Olivia." They waved when I said their names.

"Canada, don't you ever get tired of being ignored and staying over here in the corner all the time?" Megan asked.

"Well, I guess so, but it's ok. I don't mind it." We talked to Canada for the next few minutes.

"Alright everyone. The meeting is about to begin!" came a loud, clear, and commanding voice very different from Canada's. Germany was calling all of us to the table, so we stopped talking to Canada and took our seats, which were between America and Prussia, of all people. Somehow, I ended up sitting next to him.

The entire meeting, I had to deal with an odd fangirl-like urge to grab Prussia in a big hug. But, being the mature person that I am, I resisted the urge.

Basically, all that happened during the meeting was that we all introduced ourselves, and we swore not to tell anyone that the characters of Hetalia were actually real. Not that I would have told anyone, anyway. First of all, who would believe me? And if I did tell, who knew how many fangirls would start bothering the countries all the time. No one needs that kind of stress, on top of being a country.

When the meeting adjourned, I found myself, once again, standing next to Prussia. He turned towards me, and we started having a conversation.

"You're Kaylee, right?" I nodded. "So you're the one who's most like America."

"Hungary," I automatically corrected.

"Who wants to be like that un-awesome chick?" he said, looking at me with disbelief. "If anything, you should want to be like the awesome me!"

I laughed. Of course Prussia thought that. He'd always thought of himself as awesome.

"What exactly makes you so awesome, Prussia?" I asked.

He looked at me oddly, as if no one had ever asked him that question before. "Well, um, well, I'm just awesome! Can't you tell?"

Then Hungary showed up with Austria in tow, and pushed Prussia out of the way. He went over and started bothering Germany, glancing back at me one last time.

"Hey Kaylee, before you left, I wanted you to meet Austria," Hungary said.

"Hi, Austria!" I said.

"Hello," he said. He seemed a bit awkward around me. Maybe he was always awkward around new people. Luckily, we were only there for a few more seconds before we managed to get out of the door. I had managed to avoid France (who had woken up just before the meeting started), and he was now locked in a fight with England, again.

When we were all back in the van, America turned around from the driver's seat and asked, "So, what did you guys think about the other countries? I mean, I know you all like me, because, let's face it, everyone loves the hero!"

Megan laughed at him and said, 'You know, some of them were pretty weird, but I liked Canada. He seemed normal."

I added to that. "Yeah, it's so sad that no one ever really notices him."

We talked some more about Canada before America cleared his throat and said, "We've got a two hour drive back to Duluth, so let's go!" There were murmurs of agreement, so we drove back and ended up getting home by six that night. We would have been there sooner, but we stopped for McDonald's on the way, of course.

* * *

**IT'S SO LONG!**

**Sorry if I melted your brains with the sheer amount of words.**

**Oh, by the way, I actually have a plot for this story now! Thanks to my friend Aubrey.**

**Next chapter will most likely be filler, followed by the first chapter of the plot.**

**YAY FOR PLOTS!**


	9. Jet Skis and A Crashed Lunch

**I had a lot of fun writing this filler chapter. I hope you have fun reading it.**

**Disclaimer: I only own my six OCs, Olivia, Megan, Kaylee, Taylor, Hannah, and Grace.**

* * *

"So, what are you and America doing on your date today?" asked Megan. She was back at her house, now that her parents were back from their vacation. I didn't really know why she had to stay here, but I don't think her parents really trusted her at their house alone. Megan was kind of…accident prone.

"I thought I would take him out jet skiing on Lake Superior," I said. I was so surprised when I'd found out that America had never been out on a jet ski before. My parents had taken my brother and me out many times before, and I loved it.

"Ha, don't freeze!" Megan said. I laughed, but she was right. Lake Superior, even during the hottest days of the summer, was never remotely close to warm. When we were younger, my brother and I used to swim in the water, but we could only stay in for a few minutes before we had to get out and warm up. It was only the beginning of summer: July 1st. The water would be _very _cold today.

"We'll try not to!" I said. We hung up, and I made sure I had everything ready. I found some of my family's old life vests and grabbed one in our sizes. I didn't really know America's size, so I just grabbed my dad's old vest. We could have just used the vests at the rental place, but I didn't trust the vests there. Call me crazy, but my mom had passed on the crazy-clean gene to me. I was wearing my bathing suit under my clothes, and I had told America to bring some swimming trunks. I checked the weather outside and saw that it was almost 80 degrees. Nice day for jet skiing.

I packed a few more things, like our lunch and some water (extra for America), and I was all ready to go by the time my doorbell rang. I dashed over to the front door and opened it to find America standing there with a huge smile on his face. I had no choice but to smile, too. His smile was contagious.

"Hey dudette! Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "One second, just let me get the stuff." I went to get the vests and the food from the other room and came back to find America plopped on my couch, watching an old Superman cartoon.

"Hey," I said. He didn't respond. I rolled my eyes and walked up right behind him and leaned down beside his face.

"HEY! ARE YOU READY TO GO?" I screamed into his ear. He jumped off the couch and whipped around to face me.

"Whoa! Olivia, dude, don't be so loud!"

"Oh, yeah, like you're not always loud," I teased him. "Come on, are we going, or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, don't be so pushy!" he said. He picked up the bag with snacks and took it out to the car. I followed with the life vests. America wanted to drive, but I told him that he didn't know how to get to the rental place. To make a long argument short, I ended up driving there. America had a pouty face on the whole time.

"Stop moping and enjoy yourself, America!" I said as we pulled into the parking lot. "You're not going to have any fun unless you want to!"

"Yeah, whatever," he said. I parked the car and we rented the jet skis. We took them out to the dock back behind the renting place (we had left our regular clothes and the food in a locker) and got settled. America looked slightly happier as I coached him through how to get it going. Right after I was halfway through teaching him how to stop it, he zoomed past me, an exhilarated smile on his face.

"I see, you wanna race, huh?" I said under my breath. I took off towards him, rocketing along the top of the water. Man, I had forgotten how long it had been since I had done this. But it was like riding a bicycle, you never really seemed to forget it. Soon enough I had caught up to America, who looked over at me and grinned like a lunatic. He slowed down a little bit, and so did I.

"Having fun?" I asked, speaking loudly over the wind that was whipping past us.

"You bet!" he responded. "Why haven't I done this before?"

"Because you're stupid!" I said, teasing him.

"Oh yeah? I bet that I'm faster than you!"

"As if!" I cried. Then I pulled an America and zoomed ahead of him, heading towards Park Point. We passed under the Aerial Bridge, and I thought I saw a few people watching us, but I just shook it off and kept going. I looked behind me and saw him trying to catch up to me, his face full of concentration. I laughed and kept going, leaving him in the dust. This felt so good, the wind pulling my hair back to flow behind me, the cold water splashing up onto my body, providing relief from the intense rays of the sun.

I finally stopped when I got closer to shore and the water was shallow. America came up next to me, his hair soaked from the water.

"Okay," he said, smiling again. "You win."

"As I knew I would!" I moved my jet ski closer to his and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Eww, you're all wet!"

He laughed at my face, which I'm sure was full of distaste.

But I ignored him, saying, "We rented these for an hour and a half, at about 12:30, right? So they need to be returned by two, give or take a few minutes. And it's," I looked at my arm to check my watch, "1:03 right now. What do you want to do until then?"

"Well, you could show me some of Duluth. I haven't really seen a lot of it."

"Okay." I took off at a considerably slower pace from before, America keeping pace with me. I took him along the shore, telling him everything I remembered about the places along the water. We had a lot of fun, and we made it back before our rental time was up. When we ate our food, I was glad I packed extra for America, because he ate all of his food, and some of mine. But I didn't care. It was great to just be spending time with him.

* * *

**_*Kaylee's POV*_**

I had just finished eating my breakfast when I got a call from Hungary.

"Hi Kaylee! It's Hungary!" came her happy voice from over the line.

"Oh, hi Hungary!" I replied. "How'd you get my number?"

"I looked it up in the phonebook."

"Okay. So, why'd you call? What's up?"

"Well, Austria and I are staying in Duluth for a few days, and I was wondering if you might want to have lunch with us?"

Sounds fun. "Sure! Any idea of where you'd like to go?"

"Actually, no," Hungary said. She sounded slightly embarrassed. "Do you know of any places to go?"

"Well, we could go to Grandma's. It's right by the canal, and it has some pretty good food."

"Okay, thank you! We'll meet you there at 12:30, is that alright?"

"Sure! Can you guys find the place by yourselves?" They hadn't been to Duluth before, and I was worried they'd end up driving up and down the streets, completely and hopelessly lost for hours. That would _not _be good.

"Oh, our rental car has a GPS, so I think we're good.

"Awesome! I'll see you guys there, then. Bye!"

"Bye!" I hung up and put my cereal in the sink. I liked eating at Grandma's, the food there was really good, and they had a lot of variety. It would take me about 20 minutes to get there, so I had about two hours to kill before I had to leave. So I did what I would normally do, and selected a book to read from the bookcase. I got pretty into it, and when I checked the clock in the kitchen, I saw that it was almost noon. I needed to leave pretty soon. I grabbed my purse and headed into my garage. My parents were both out for the day, so I took our truck and headed for the canal.

20 minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Grandma's and stood by the front door of the restaurant. I was only waiting a few minutes before I saw Hungary and Austria walking towards me, Hungary waving violently. I giggled and waved back.

"Hi!" she said when they got close enough. "Ready to go in?"

"Yep!" I said. We walked inside, none of us noticing the car that had just pulled in to the parking lot.

There was no wait, so we were seated in a booth immediately, Hungary and Austria on one side, with me on the other side. They had a lot of questions about the food here, and I was perfectly happy to recommend food each of them would like.

We had just gotten our drinks and had decided on what we were going to order when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whipped around, and came face to face with….

Prussia. I really should have seen this coming.

"Hey you un-awesome people!" he said, grinning at us. "You are in luck, because the Awesome Prussia has decided to join you for lunch!" And then he sat in my side of the booth, squishing me into the wall.

"Prussia, did you follow us here?" Hungary asked, her eyes flashing.

"No, you're too un-awesome to follow!" he said, laughing. "I followed Kaylee."

"How do you know where I live?" I asked.

"I looked it up online. You really need to be careful about what you put on the Internet."

I rolled my eyes at him and turned away. The waitress came back and took Prussia's order without question, and we ended up actually having a good time. Prussia sitting next to me was kind of awkward, though.

When we'd finished eating, I decided to pay for everyone's food (because I'm just nice that way). Austria and Hungary had to go, but promised that they'd see me at the World Conference that was being held back down in Minneapolis tomorrow (Yeah, I was surprised they were having another one, too). So it was just me and Prussia.

"I guess you want to go, too," I said to him.

"Nah, I think the Awesome Me can handle staying with you for a little longer." Really? That was surprising. I didn't think I was all that special.

"Okay, so what do you want to do?"

"I don't know, what do you want to do?

I thought for a moment. What was there to do by the canal in Duluth?

"Well," I mused. "We could just walk for a while. There really isn't much to do out here."

"Okay!" he said.

So we began walking. We walked down the edge of the canal and onto the Aerial Bridge, walking on the sidewalk there. Prussia did say that he was awesome quite a few times, but he was also really nice to me. I hadn't expected that.

We were about halfway across the bridge when I saw two people on jet skis zoom from under the bridge and head off to Park Point. I looked closer, and I saw that it was none other than Olivia and America. I remembered her telling me that they were going on another date today, but I didn't think that I would actually see them. So we decided to do the only logical thing and spy on them.

It was actually pretty funny. I would have to ask Olivia later if they saw us or not. Or maybe I wouldn't. We _could _just keep this secret, and never tell them. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.

We were walking back to the Grandma's parking lot when I tripped over a rock that was on the sidewalk and fell, right onto Prussia, causing us both to topple over. It ended up with us facing each other, Prussia's back to the ground. Blushing furiously, I quickly got up and offered him a hand.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry!" I said, still blushing.

"Hey, it's okay!" Prussia said. I was still embarrassed, though, and said a quick but polite goodbye before I headed back over to my truck and drove back to my house, decidedly more nervous about the World Conference than I had been just a few hours before.

* * *

**Okay, so maybe I lied about the whole "one filler chapter and then the plot" thing.**

**Don't kill me!**

**Actually, the next chapter is sort of important to the sub-plot my friend Aubrey and I came up with.**

**Well, mostly Aubrey.**

**Anyway, the next chapter shouldn't take too long to write, that is, if my mom doesn't take my computer away again.**

**Oh, and don't blame me if any part of the jet skiing is incorrect. I have never been on a jet ski before, but I saw some people jet skiing underneath the Aerial Bridge two days ago, and thought that was a good idea.**

**See y'all later.**


	10. Adventures in Computing

**Hi! I'm back, with another update! Please don't kill me for taking so long!**

**So, about Grandma's: It's a real place. I have eaten there, and the food is delicious. I actually had a burger with bacon on it, and it was amazing. You can never have too much bacon.**

* * *

Driving to the World Conference today was pretty interesting. America was driving, which made him happy, and I was sitting in the front next to him. That's what you get when you call shotgun! Megan and Kaylee were in the middle seats, and Taylor, Grace, and Hannah were all squished in the back row. The car ride really wasn't that fun for them.

"Ow! Grace, you're sitting on my hand!" Taylor complained, trying to wiggle her hand out from under Grace. She was in the middle, so it was the worst for her.

"Taylor, you're stepping on my computer!" Hannah cried, rescuing her precious computer from Taylor's giant feet.

"Hannah, did you really have to bring your computer with us?" Megan asked, turning around to look at her.

"Of course!" Hannah said with indignation. "What if I get bored?"

The seven of us kept arguing about random things like that until we reached the conference building. Let me just say that I was _very _relieved to be out of there.

"Jeez, America, what is it, like the fourth time you guys have held a conference here in two weeks?" I asked. "What's up with that?"

"We usually have a lot of meetings in one place before taking a break and moving somewhere else, but, yeah, this is kind of weird. But two of the meetings were about you guys, so..."

"You didn't really get much done," I finished for him. "Come on guys," I said to the others. "Let's go."

When we got into the room, we spread out to talk to our new country friends. I pretended to listen to whatever Italy was saying and instead looked over at what Hannah was doing. She ignored everybody around her and set up her computer on the table. I walked over to her and watched her log on. She went straight to the Internet, and I had a sudden, amazing idea.

"Hey, Hannah, isn't our old wiki still up from high school?"

"Yeah, I think it is," she said, turning around to grin at me. She knew exactly what I was thinking. "Should I bring it up?"

"You should," I said. She went into her Favorites list and clicked on the link. I heard footsteps behind me and turned around to see Grace, Taylor, and Megan behind us.

"Wow, I completely forgot about this wiki!" Taylor said as the blue log-in screen loaded. Hannah typed in her email and password, and clicked the button. The front page slowly loaded.

"Look at that," I said, when it was finally done. "Last edited by England, four years ago."

"I forgot we used our country nicknames as our usernames for the wiki!" Grace said. "Look, there's a comment by me!"

We amused ourselves by looking at the comments on the front page and we were laughing so hard that America and England came up to us and asked us what we were doing. I told them about the wiki, and they started laughing with us as they read the comments, too. My eyes flicked to the 'Recent Activity' tab and saw that one of my pages was the last to be edited. So I told Hannah to click on it.

When the page loaded, I was looking at words I had typed in the eighth grade. I made Hannah move over and I scrolled the page down until I saw a picture of America that I had posted on there, in honor of the Fourth of July years and years ago.

"Hey, look America!" I said, pointing to the screen. "It's a picture of you!"

"Oh yeah, it is!" he responded, leaning closer to see the page better. I let him browse for a few minutes, while I looked around the room for Kaylee, who wasn't over here by us. I saw her in the corner, talking to Hungary, both of them trying to ignore Prussia. I laughed to myself about the irony and decided to do something completely evil.

"Hey, Hannah!" I said loudly, making sure everybody in the room could hear. "Why don't you open Kaylee's page? You know, the one called Prussia?"

The second after I finished saying that, Kaylee had rushed over to where we were sitting. "Oh no, no you are not going to be showing that page to anyone!"

I laughed to myself when Prussia came over behind her. "Oh? What's this I hear? You made a page about the Awesome Me? I have to see this!" I laughed out loud when Kaylee started trying to drag Prussia away from the computer. He was pretty strong, so she wasn't really making any progress.

"Hannah, don't you dare open up that page!" she said, giving the two of us a stern glare. I rolled my eyes and dragged the computer closer to me and clicked on the page. Hey, Kaylee never said anything about opening that page to me!

As it loaded, Kaylee stopped pulling Prussia away and stared at the screen in horror. Prussia watched with an amused expression on his face.

When it was done loading, we were facing the full extent of Kaylee's fangirlness. Oh, I forgot how many pictures of Prussia there were on this page! The real Prussia pulled up another chair and sat next to us, watching the screen very closely as Hannah scrolled down the page and the pictures appeared. I looked behind me, and I saw that Kaylee was blushing like crazy. I smirked at her and she stuck her tongue out at me. Lame comeback. I turned back to the screen and watched the pictures going up the screen. I looked over at Prussia a few times, and he always looked as if he were on the verge of laughing.

Too soon for my liking, the pictures came to an end and the comments began. Prussia read all of them, actually laughing at a few. I didn't comment on that page very much, except to tell Kaylee what a fangirl she was being.

Behind me, Kaylee's face was still beet red, but she was standing there and taking it, so I had to give her credit for that. If it were me being embarrassed like that, I would have at least left from where I could see the screen, and Prussia's face.

Finally, that page was done, and we pushed Prussia out of his chair so that other nations could take a closer look at our wiki filled with Hetalia stuff. They had fun reading what we had written and looking at the demotivational posters we had put up. Megan's three pages were full of them, so we were clicking back to them often. I knew we weren't going to get anything done at the meeting, but I didn't really care. I was having too much fun showing off the wiki to all our new friends.

_***Meanwhile, across the room from Olivia… (Kaylee's POV)***_

I was so embarrassed. Why did Olivia have to go and click on that stupid page? Now Prussia knew that I had been completely obsessed with him when I was younger! If I knew him as well as I thought I did, I knew that he was never going to let this go. Never. Even worse, I had given him my phone number when we were walking the day before. Now he could torment me about it for the rest of time. Unless I got my number changed. Either way, I needed to face this problem now. And that meant talking to Prussia.

I walked over to where he was standing, my stomach aching and my heart pounding from nervousness. Why should I feel this way? After all, it wasn't like I was obsessed with Prussia the way I had been when I was younger. Not at all. And I really wished he would wipe that stupid smirk of his face!

"About that webpage," I began, trying to ignore his facial expressions. "I'm really sorry you had to see that. I'll admit that I was a bit obsessed with you when I was younger, but I'm over it now. Really. It was just a phase."Was I rambling? I could tell that my face was slightly red. Why was this happening?

"Ha, don't worry about it! I'm too awesome to be bothered by that anyway," he said, but with an odd look on his face. I couldn't quite place it. Was it sadness? No, not really. It was more like…disappointment. Yeah, that was it. But why was he disappointed? Hmm, this would require more thought.

"So, um, how have you been?" I asked in a desperate and lame attempt to change the subject.

He laughed at my question, and I blushed a little bit deeper. "Well, the Awesome Me has been awesome, obviously. How have you been?"

Before I could answer him, Olivia came rushing over to us, Megan and Grace right behind her. I could see Hannah packing up her computer, and Taylor was talking to France again. I shuddered. What, may I ask, did she see in him?

"Kaylee!" Olivia said. I gave her one more glare. I was still mad about the whole wiki thing. "A few of the countries invited us to have lunch here in Minneapolis tomorrow! Can you call your parents and tell them you're staying with us in a hotel tonight?"

"Oh, sure!" I said. Lunch sounded like fun. I just hoped it wouldn't turn out like lunch yesterday. Now _that _had been awkward.

I called my mom, who said that it was fine for me to be there, as long as I kept close to my friends at all times. She was pretty protective of me sometimes. But what are moms for?

Prussia got invited too, and he gave me a huge wink, to which I blushed _again. _What was wrong with me? Why did I keep blushing? It was driving me insane.

We finally started the meeting, about an hour after we got there. I really didn't know why we were there, but I guess that now that we knew about the existence of the countries, we needed to be informed of what was going on. That was fine with me. I liked hanging out with the countries. Some of them were pretty funny. Some of them were creepy, like Russia and France, but I could avoid them easily.

Eventually, finally, the meeting was over and we were getting ready to leave. We had to book a few hotel rooms to fit all seven of us, and we ended up at the same hotel as the nations having lunch with us.

We booked a total of four rooms, one for Olivia and Megan, one for Grace and I, one for Hannah and Taylor, and one for America. He got a room all to himself. We soon realized that it was getting really late, it was nearly eleven.

After we were settled in our rooms, Grace and I sat up talking for what felt like hours, even though it was probably only one.

"Hey, so what do you think of all the countries?" I asked her.

"I think that they are exactly the way they were portrayed in Hetalia. It's really weird. Oh, and sorry about the wiki."

"Hey, it isn't your fault!" I said, looking over at her. "Olivia and Hannah were the ones looking at it."

"I know, but I just feel bad about it. It made things awkward between you and Prussia."

"That's okay. He's cool with it, and so am I."

"Speaking of Prussia, I noticed that you blushed a lot when you were talking to him," she said, her voice taking on a teasing tone.

"So?" The mentioned blush was starting to creep up in my cheeks again. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Be honest with me. You like him, don't you?" Grace asked.

"What?" I said. "I do not! I like him as a friend, sure, but not like that!"

"Just keep telling yourself that, Kaylee! I know it's not true! Goodnight!" She rolled over and was silent. I turned over, too, and tried to get to sleep. But my mind kept drifting over to what Grace had said. I didn't have a crush on Prussia, did I? I had only known him for a few days! And, anyway, what was there to like about him? He never stopped bragging about himself! I may have been obsessed with him years ago, but I did not feel that way now, right? However, that would explain why I had been blushing like crazy around him during the meeting.

I finally drifted off to sleep, but not before I realized that, well, maybe I did like Prussia. Maybe. But I was never going to admit that to anyone. Especially when I had barely admitted it to myself.

* * *

**Aww, so cute!**

**Anyway, this wiki I keep referring to is a real thing. I do have a friend who created a Prussia page, and I have another friend who has three pages full of demotivational posters. **

**Enjoy your lives! Cheerio!**


	11. Matchmaking Is Really Hard Sometimes

**MUAHAHAHAHAHA! ANOTHER UPDATE!**

**But, in all seriousness, I am done delaying my plot. It begins next chapter.**

**Aubrey, my dearest friend, this one's for you.**

* * *

"Megan, where are they?" I whined as we sat in the breakfast area, waiting for the others to show up. "We agreed that we would meet down here at ten, and it's almost 10:15."

"Olivia, not everyone can get themselves up without an alarm at any time they want to like you can," Megan said to me. "They're probably getting ready right now." And, sure enough, they all started trickling in. The last ones there were Grace and Kaylee, who both looked very tired.

"Wow, did you guys pull an all-nighter last night?" Taylor asked, taking in their baggy eyes and sluggish movements. "How come I wasn't invited?"

"Trust me, I _tried _to go to sleep," Kaylee said, looking pointedly at Grace. "But this one over here insisted on talking for hours before she let me go to sleep."

"Hey, you never said that you were tired!" Grace said.

"What _did _make you guys finally stop talking and go to sleep?" Megan asked them. I saw Grace look over at Kaylee, grinning like a loon. Kaylee gave her a warning look, her eyes narrowed.

"Don't you dare tell them what we were talking about," she said.

"Why? Does that mean it's true?" she asked in a gleeful tone. Kaylee didn't respond to her, but a blush appeared in her cheeks, which I'm guessing was enough evidence for Grace to shout, "YES! I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU LIKED P-" But before she could finish what she was saying, Kaylee had clamped a hand over Grace's mouth and pulled her back down into her seat, blushing deeper.

"What? Why can't I tell them?" Grace said to her, gesturing to everyone else at the table.

"Because I don't trust _him", _she said, pointing at America. He looked at her with a _Who, me? _face that made me laugh a little bit.

"Well, America, you know you don't really have a filter, right?" Taylor teased.

"Oh, please," Megan added. "I doubt he even knows what a filter is."

"Hey, can you all stop hating on my boyfriend?" I said, placing an arm around America's shoulder. "It's not very nice."

"Thanks, babe," he whispered before kissing me on the cheek. Thank God I never blushed. Although, it didn't really help that Taylor let of f a loud wolf whistle. Grr.

It was a sort-of buffet type breakfast, and we all ended up having our favorite breakfast foods. I couldn't really tell what America was eating, because it practically disappeared off his plate the second he sat down. I had some pancakes, which were delicious.

It was about eleven when we had finished eating breakfast, and we were meeting the other nations at one thirty. So, what does a group of seven people do in Minneapolis to kill time?

They go to the Mall of America, of course! (Ha, ha)

"I have never been here before!" Kaylee said as we came in the West Entrance. I had, but just a few times, and the last had been when I was thirteen. It was a bit different than I had remembered it. For one thing, there were a lot more rides in the amusement park. Which, of course, was what America was drawn to.

"Dude! Olivia! We have to go on all the rides!" He grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the ticket station.

I yelled back to my friends. "Meet us here at one!"

"Okay!" they shouted back. America and I got in line for tickets and purchased enough to last us a while. The great thing about there being a mall to surround the amusement park was that the lines were not nearly as long as they would be at somewhere like Six Flags, or Disney World. We got on the rides, if not immediately, then on the next run. I know those rides are meant for kids, but honestly, I had a lot of fun. But not as much fun as America, of course. After every ride, he begged me to go on it again, just like a little kid.

Before we knew it, it was one o' clock and my friends were waving frantically from the front of the park. I pulled America over there, and saw that they were carrying bags from different stores. Kaylee flashed a smile at me and handed me a bag from Hot Topic. I narrowed my eyes at her and took the bag.

"Open it!" she said enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes, reached into the bag, and pulled out an America plushie.

"Really, Kaylee? Really?" I asked as the five of them started laughing like maniacs. America took it from my hand and looked at it for a little bit, and then gave it back, laughing like the rest of them.

"H-hey, Olivia, I wasn't even the one who suggested buying it!" Kaylee said through her laughter. "It was Taylor!"

"Taylor!" I yelled, now facing her. "How dare you?"

"I-I just had to, Olivia! You know I did!"

Eventually I stopped threatening to kill them all and we got out of there and to the restaurant as fast as we could. It was an Italian place, and they put a _lot _of tables together to make room for all the nations that would be there. I found myself sitting in between America and England, and across from Italy, Germany, and Prussia. Italy was ecstatic about the amount of pasta dishes on the menu, and Germany was looking over the menu, looking for something that resembled German food.

"Why did we have to choose an unawesome Italian restaurant?" Prussia complained, also looking over the menu. "There is nothing good here!"

"We came here because Italy was going to cry like a little baby until the end of time if we went anywhere else," I reminded him. "Hey, Italy, which pasta are you going to have?"

"Ve!" he said, obviously very excited about his pasta. "I think I'm going to have spaghetti and meatballs!"

"Ah, the old classic," I said, searching for it on the menu. It looked good. "You know, I think I'll have that too, Italy!"

"Yay!" he cried. I tried to help Germany and Prussia find something they would like or the next few minutes until the waiters came to take our orders (yes, there were enough of us there that we needed two waiters). Italy and I ordered our pasta, and Germany and Prussia both got steak, medium rare. That sounded pretty good, too. Now our food was ordered and there was nothing to do but sit and talk with everyone. Pretty soon I found myself in a conversation with England and America.

"I really don't see how anyone can possibly enjoy that greasy mess you call food, America," said England.

"Come on, dude! McDonald's is awesome! Olivia agrees, right?" He looked at me as he said that, puppy dog eyes in place.

I rolled my eyes. That trick didn't work on me. "Sorry America, I just don't like hamburgers! Or most of the food at McDonald's! I really don't know what else to tell you!"

England looked at me with newfound respect. "And what do you think of British food?"

I gave him a big smile as I said, "Scones are the best! I would like to try one you've made. I bet they're really good!"

"You really think so?"

"Of course I do! Why doesn't anyone else like your scones?"

"Because they're terribly bland!" America blurted, quite loudly. Everyone around us went dead silent, looking at the three of us. I was looking at England, whose face was getting slightly redder by the second.

"YOU BLOODY WANKER!" England shouted, trying to grab America's neck, reaching right across me and falling in my lap.

"Um, England?" I said, trying to get my attention. He stopped trying to strangle America for a moment and looked at me, obviously annoyed that I had stopped him. "You're practically lying right on top of me."

He blushed, and quickly sat back down in his seat, muttering apologies under his breath. I managed to keep the two of them from killing each other until our food came, which I think I deserve an award for.

"Oh, that looks really good!" I said as my plate was set in front of me. It wasn't a very large portion, as it was lunchtime, but it was still a lot of food. And I was really hungry. Italy's food was gone in about ten minutes. I guess his teeth are as fast as his feet. America ate his food pretty fast, too. He had gone and gotten himself a burger. I really should have expected that. I didn't even know why they had a burger on the menu, but I guess some people just didn't like Italian food.

"Okay, that was delicious!" I said as I pushed my now empty plate away from me. One of the waiters came and took it away, and I decided to go down the table a little bit to where Grace was sitting, with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. There was an empty seat next to her, and I sat there.

"Hey Grace, what were you and Kaylee talking about this morning? You know, when she covered your mouth?" I was really curious, and wanted to know.

"Oh, that?" Grace looked around us, presumably for Kaylee, before she looked back at me and let out a little giggle. "Well, last night, Kaylee and I were talking, and I asked her if she liked Prussia. You know, like boyfriend material."

"And you found out this morning that she does?"

"Well, you saw the way she blushed around him yesterday, and when I brought him up this morning. She's got a crush on him."

I thought about that to myself. Kaylee liked Prussia, huh? That was good to know. I could, somehow, try to get them together. That's what I did with Megan and her first boyfriend. Who said I couldn't do it again?

Of course, the first thing to do was find out if Prussia liked her back. Because if he didn't, the whole plan was screwed.

I also needed an assistant, someone to help me out with my matchmaking plan. So, I quickly whispered it to Grace, making sure no one heard me. She grinned at me, and I led her back over to my part of the table, where Prussia was sitting, alone. I sat across from him and Grace sat next to me, the two of us ready for a hardcore interrogation session. Well, sort of.

"Hey Prussia, what's up?" I asked.

"Oh, not much. I'm just being awesome!"

We rolled our eyes at that. He really said he was awesome way too much. It was time to implement our strategy!

"So, Prussia, I wanted to ask you a question," said Grace. "What do you think of Kaylee?"

I face-palmed. Way to be obvious, Grace. Prussia _totally _isn't going to figure out what we're really asking him.

"Um, well," he started out, his eyes staring off into the distance. I followed his eyes, and saw that he was staring right at Kaylee. Ha. Busted.

"Prussia. You are talking to us, not Kaylee. So please stop staring at her," I said, trying to get his attention. He snapped out of it and turned back to face me. Was that a blush I detected on his face? It was really faint, but it was still there. And that counted for something.

"I wasn't staring at Kaylee!" he said, his voice taking on a defensive tone. "I'm way too awesome for that!"

"Hey. If you like her, you know, in _that _way, you can just tell us!" Grace said. "I promise we won't tell her. We'll let you do that."

He looked around the room, making sure no one was listening in. Satisfied that no one was, he leaned in closer to us. "Alright. Alright, I admit it. The Awesome Me might have a little bit of a crush on Kaylee."

Grace and I looked at each other, smirked, and gave each other high fives.

"Great, thanks Prussia! Now go tell her you like her!" I said, clapping him on the back. He looked at us, swallowed and walked over to Kaylee.

"Let's get closer to them! I wanna hear what she says!" Grace dragged me up a few feet and we hid behind a chair, watching as Prussia started talking to Kaylee.

"Kaylee, the Awesome Me needs to tell you something."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Um, well, I really, really like-"

"Kaylee! I need you to help me pull France and England apart! They're fighting again!" came Megan's voice from somewhere in the room. Kaylee excused herself and followed Megan to where France and England were trying to strangle each other. Prussia turned around and shrugged his shoulders at us. I face-palmed again and Grace shook her head in defeat.

"Try again tomorrow," I said to him. "Trust me; I'm pretty sure we're all going to leave soon."

Sure enough, after France and England stopped fighting, we got kicked out of the restaurant and drove back to Duluth. I looked over at Kaylee, and hoped that she'd be happy with whatever happened tomorrow. Man, matchmaking was hard work!

* * *

**Yes, yes it is.**

**Well, I have to get up at about six tomorrow to drive to the airport, so I need to go.**

**Oh, but one more thing.**

**I have another fan fiction in the works!**

**It's really early in development, and all I can say is, Pirates!**

**I'm excited for this one!**


	12. Oh, now we get a plot twist?

**Oh god, this was the worst chapter in the history of chapters to write. And it's so freaking short! **

**I also got horrible writer's block when I was only about 600 words in, and ended up changing my entire plot. But it's ok, because now I should be updating a bit faster.**

**Probably not until Monday, though, as my birthday's on Sunday.**

**I am really sorry for the horrible writing you are about to endure. Please, don't come to my place in large mobs, because that would be very scary.**

**Disclaimer: I no own Hetalia. Got it?**

* * *

"Hey, don't forget that today's America's birthday," Kaylee reminded me as she made breakfast. She had slept over at my house last night, after we got back from eating lunch with the nations, and had insisted on making pancakes. I told her that she didn't have to make me breakfast, but she insisted on it, saying that my cooking was terrible. Which I didn't deny, because it was true.

"I'm not going to forget it's his birthday, Kaylee!" I said, watching her cook. "I mean, it's the freaking Fourth of July. And he's been dropping hints every day for the past week! We're going to hang out later, after you go home."

"Do you want me to leave now?" she asked.

"No, you can stay. I'm hungry, and you're making pancakes." Actually, I had invited Kaylee over to spend the night because I was hoping Prussia would call her while I was there. I really wanted to see her face when he told her he liked her. That would make me very happy.

As she finished up the pancakes, I went to get the syrup from the pantry. Maple syrup with pancakes was the best. The absolute best. I set it out on the table, and Kaylee plopped a couple of pancakes on each of our plates.

"Man, isn't it lucky that your parents decided to take a cruise to the Bahamas this week?" Kaylee said as she took a bite of pancake. "It's really cool that they trust you so much."

"More like they couldn't wait to get out of the house," I said, bringing my fork to my mouth. I tasted the pancake as it went down my throat. "Holy crap, Kaylee! Where did you learn to make these? They're delicious!"

"Thanks! My mom taught me how to make them from scratch a long time ago. Hers are better, though."

"Can I come to your house and live there? Permanently?"

We both laughed. It was nice to spend some time alone with Kaylee. I didn't really get to do that a lot anymore. We were both always so busy, not to mention being miles and miles apart during the school year. It was nice to just sit and talk.

Of course, soon enough we finished our delicious pancakes and had to think of something to do. I was going to ask Kaylee to leave pretty soon after lunch so that I could spend more time with America on his birthday. I laughed as I realized how old he was.

"So, what do you want to do now?" Kaylee asked from the kitchen. She was cleaning up after us, too. Why did she have to be so awesome?

"I don't know," I said, thinking. "Well, I guess we could go to Brighton Beach and swim in Lake Superior."

"I guess, but isn't that really, really cold?" she asked.

"Of course it is, it's Lake Superior! But it's pretty warm outside right now, so I'm sure we'll be fine." I went to my room and grabbed two of my bathing suits, thankful that Kaylee was about my size.

Because I'm awesome (**A/N: Sadly, not as awesome as Prussia**), I insisted on driving to the beach. Well, that and I knew I was a faster driver than Kaylee. When we got there, Kaylee went into the tiny bathroom (more like a Port-A-Potty) to change into her swimsuit and I took the backseat of the car. Thank goodness the windows were tinted. There weren't a lot of people out here, actually, the beach was pretty much empty, but I wasn't taking any chances.

When we were both finished, I led the way through the tall grass and down to the rocky shore. Brighton Beach was full of rocks. Little pebbles and stones, hefty rocks that made a huge splash when you threw them, and giant rocks that made good surfaces to sit or stand on. Most of the larger rocks were partially or completely in the water. Taking a deep breath, I dipped one foot in the water. Huh, it wasn't nearly as cold as I'd thought it would have been. It was actually pretty nice. I relayed that fact to Kaylee and she came in too, gasping slightly at the surprising temperature of the water.

In a way that reminded me of when we were kids, we splashed and played around in the water for what felt like hours. We only stopped when Kaylee's phone rang, at which point she got out of the water and retrieved it from the rock she had set it on. She answered it, and I wondered who could possibly be on the other end of the line. Although I had a pretty good idea.

* * *

_Relax Prussia, you can do this! You're awesome!_

Prussia was trying to convince himself to call Kaylee and ask her to hang out with him, because he was just awesome like that. He kept telling himself that he was awesome over and over again for a few more minutes until he felt he was ready to make the call. He whipped out his cell phone and dialed the number, silently praying that she would pick up.

Which she did.

"Hello?" came her voice from the other end of the line.

"Hi Kaylee, It's me, the Awesome Prussia! I just wanted to know what you're doing right now."

"Oh, hi Prussia! Olivia and I are out swimming at Brighton Beach. The water isn't even that cold today! Why do you ask?"

Here it was. Time to ask her. "I was wondering if you would like to hang out with the Awesome Me tomorrow. I'm in Duluth right now, so I thought I'd ask."

A short pause followed that. Prussia thought he heard Kaylee and Olivia's muffled voices through the phone, and realized that she was probably asking Olivia what she should do.

She answered a few seconds after the voices stopped. "Sure! That sounds awesome, Prussia!"

He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and said back into the phone, "Awesome! So, I was thinking that we could meet tomorr-"

But he didn't get to finish his sentence, because all of a sudden, he heard the sound of a gun going off. But it wasn't coming from anywhere around him. It was coming from the place where Kaylee was.

Almost immediately after the gun went off, either Kaylee or Olivia screamed, and the phone was cut off with a long, loud beep.

Prussia dropped his phone in surprise, and didn't even wince when he heard the screen shatter. Only one thing was registering in his brain right now.

Kaylee and Olivia were in danger. Something had to be done.

The first thing Prussia did was go to the room next to his. He was staying in the same hotel as America, and he thought that America needed to know what was going on.

He knocked hard at the door, his heart pounding so fast he felt like it was going to jump out of his chest.

"Hey, Prussia! Dude, what's up?" America opened the door, acting like his normal cheerful self, but that all changed when he saw Prussia's face. "Dude, what's the matter?"

Prussia told him all about the phone call, the gunshot, and the scream. As he was telling the story, America's face changed from happy, to worried, to just plain horrified.

"We have to go see if they're okay!" he yelled, pushing past Prussia and heading out to his car. Prussia followed, mentally agreeing with America.

On their way to Brighton Beach, America tried to call both Olivia and Kaylee's cell phones several times. The calls went straight to voicemail. Neither of them talked the entire way, until they pulled into the beach parking lot.

There was one car there, which America recognized as Olivia's car, but there were no people in sight. The two nations (well, nation and ex-nation) searched the grass, the rocks, and the water for any sign of blood, but all they found was a single bullet casing on one of the large, flat rocks.

As a sort of final, desperate move, America opened the car door, which was unlocked, and looked around inside of it. He came back out with a piece of paper in his hand, reading whatever it said as fast as he could. Prussia could see his eyes whipping back and forth across the page.

"What? What is it?" Prussia asked, striding over to America. America just handed the piece of paper to him, not wanting to talk, or maybe not able to.

It read:

_Hello, America,_

_I suppose you're probably wondering where Olivia is by now._

_Well, she's with me._

_And will remain with me unless you show up at my place at a time that we will prearrange, _alone_._

_You must be _alone_._

_Basically, call this number or you will never see her again._

_206-758-1439_

_P.S. Oh yeah, Kaylee's with me too._

Prussia looked up from the letter at America, who looked back at him, anger, frustration, and a little bit of sadness in his eyes. Prussia looked away, towards the lake, letting the letter drop to the ground.

"Well, shit."

* * *

**Ooh, drama!**

**Finally, I was tired of just rambing on and on about endless nonsense.**

**So, next chapter we find out who wrote the letter!**

**I would love to read your guesses!**

**So, tell me what they are in a review!**

**Oh, and if you're one of the people who already know, don't spoil it for everyone else. I want you guys to be shocked.**

**Did anyone catch the subtle A Very Potter Sequel reference I threw in there? No? Okay!**

**One more thing: I'm going to get Alice Kirkland cosplay for my birthday!**

**Well, not for a few weeks afterwards, but I am getting it!**

**Tealgirl713 out!**


	13. Evil Plans and Other Plans

**OH MY GOD I'M NOT DEAD!**

**I am really, really sorry for the delay, but it was a combination of my lazyness, writer's block, and my computer being taken away from Monday to Thursday. Not _all _my fault!**

**Anyway, again, really really sorry about the delay! Hopefully it won't take me, what, ten days this time?**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Hetalia, it would suck.**

* * *

You know that feeling when a basketball hits you in the back of your head, and your head hurts so bad that it feels as if it's about to split open? Well, multiply that by about a hundred, and you've got a pretty good idea of how bad my head hurt as I was coming back into consciousness.

"Uhhhhh," I moaned, reaching a hand up to my head to feel it and search for injuries. I found one. A big one. There was a huge bump in my head that prickled painfully when my hand touched it. My eyes were closed, but I sat up and began rubbing them. Man, my head hurt like hell. Finally, I opened my eyes.

I appeared to be in what looked like a basement. It was pretty big, as basements go. But it wasn't very furnished. I mean, it had walls, a ceiling, a floor, and two chairs that were inside of this cell thing I was locked in.

Yeah, that's right. A cell. I was in a freaking _cell._

And Kaylee was here, too. But she wasn't awake yet. So, while I waited for her to wake up and start freaking out, I thought really hard about what had happened before I blacked out. All I really remembered was that Kaylee had been talking on the phone with Prussia, when all of a sudden, a bullet shot right between us. Kaylee screamed, and I was about to run, but then someone must have hit me on the back of the head, and I passed out. I didn't get to see who had attacked me.

A little after my head had started hurting a little less, Kaylee woke up. She was like me, feeling her head with her hand, but then she sat up as if someone had shocked her, and promptly started freaking out.

"Oh my god, where are we?" she asked, looking around in a panic.

"I don't know."

"Olivia! What if we're in jail! I don't want to go to jail! I didn't do anything wrong! And why does my head hurt so much?"

"We are not in jail," I said, trying to keep her calm. It was weird, but usually I was the one that needed to be calmed down. Maybe I was able to stay so calm because of how freaked out Kaylee was. "Kaylee, wherever we are, we're going to be okay."

"But what if we aren't!" she shouted. "What if we _die _here?" I drew in a deep breath. It was proving really hard to calm her down.

"Kaylee Anne Clark, I promise, on my life, that we are going to be absolutely fine. We are not going to die."

She finally seemed to calm down a little bit. Thank God. It was really hard to think when your friend was screaming her deepest fears at you.

We just sat there for the next few minutes. I don't know about Kaylee, but I was thinking about who had put us here. Could it have been one of the nations? Was it Russia? Or France? Honestly, I didn't know who would be worse.

But of course, my curiosity was lifted only moments later when I heard the unmistakable creak of a door being opened. I snapped my head up so I could try and see who it was.

No freaking way. It couldn't be. No, I was seeing things, I had to be. Or I was dreaming! I pinched myself, but the nation was still there, staring at us. And it was pretty much the _last _person I had expected to see right now.

It was Canada.

Wait, what? Canada? No, Canada could not have been the one behind all of this. He was the most normal nation of them all! A little timid, but normal. What did he have to gain by kidnapping us? I looked at him, straight in his eyes, and I saw something I never thought I'd see there.

Fury.

"C-Canada?" Kaylee stammered, looking about as confused and scared as I felt. "W-what are you doing here? What the hell is going on?"

He stared at her, and even though his gaze wasn't directed at me, I still felt the intensity of it. It made me want to curl up in a little ball and die. Or just cry in the corner for several hours. I think I like the second one better.

"Isn't it obvious?" he said, his normally quiet, timid voice replaced by a voice that was much stronger and just…not Canada. "I'm using you as leverage."

"Leverage for what?" I asked, the ability to speak finally returning to me. "What are you planning to do with us, Canada? What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. I am absolutely fine. Except for the fact that everyone fucking forgets me all the time, and I intend to do something about it."

Ah. The fact that it was Canada standing in front of us made sense now. But what was he going to do? He wasn't going to kill us, was he? I didn't want to die. That would mean that I would never get to see my family and friends again. Not my mom, or my dad, or Sam. Not my obnoxious cousin, not any of the nations. Not Italy, or England, or America.

"What are you going to do?" Kaylee asked. I could tell she was trying to sound intimidating, but she was failing. Horribly.

Canada just gave us both a really creepy grin and turned to leave the room. Before he left, he turned back to face us and said, "You'll find out soon enough."

And with that, he left the room, shutting the door and locking it. I could hear the click. I turned back to Kaylee as a horrible feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

We really weren't going to get out of this completely unharmed, were we?

_***Megan's POV***_

I was surfing the Interwebs in my room when my cell phone rang. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, looking at the caller ID. It was America.

"Hello?" I said when I picked up.

"Megan! Thank god you answered!" America sounded panicky. What was wrong with him? And why did he call me in the first place?

"What's wrong?"

"Olivia and Kaylee got kidnapped," he said, the volume of his voice decreasing dramatically from the start of that sentence to the end of it. He also talked really fast.

"Wait, what?" I asked. I had heard what he said, but it wasn't really clicking with me.

He laughed nervously from the other end. "Hehe, well, you see, Olivia and Kaylee kinda, well, got kidnapped from a beach."

"WHAT?" I shouted into the receiver. "AMERICA, YOU BASTARD! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?"

"I'm sorry! It wasn't my fault!"

"NOT YOUR FAULT? YOU'RE THE SUPPOSED HERO! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO _PROTECT _THEM!"

"I know." He sounded really sad and depressed. I felt a little bad about yelling at him, so I took my voice down a few notches.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, still attempting to remain calm. I knew I was going to completely go insane and do something terrible to America later for letting this happen, but I could put it off for a bit. "Is there a plan?"

"Well, all the nations are meeting here in Duluth in a few hours to come up with one. You guys are invited, too."

"I'll be there," I said, determination in my words. Just name a time and a place."

* * *

I really didn't get how America was able to book the Greysolon Plaza on such short notice, or how the countries were able to get there so fast, but I didn't question it. The important thing right now was finding Olivia and Kaylee.

The meeting room was dead silent when I entered. For a second, I actually thought the room was empty. But then I saw Taylor and Grace muttering to each other in the corner, so I went over there to join them.

"Who do you think did this?" Grace asked.

"I don't know," Taylor replied. "I mean, it wouldn't be a nation, would it? We don't even know why they got kidnapped!"

"I'm guessing America is going to tell us in a few minutes," I said through gritted teeth. "Unless I murder him first."

"Megan! You can't murder America!" Grace whined. I looked at her and rolled my eyes.

"Okay, maybe I can't murder him, but I can at least make his life a living hell, right? I brought duct tape."

"You do realize he's really beating himself up over this whole thing, right?" Taylor said, pointing over to where America was sitting. I looked at him, and he did look pretty upset. We all know how America acts, right? He's always happy, always loud, and always annoying. Well, now he was quiet, and he looked really sad.

Of course, that didn't stop me from wanting to beat the shit out of him. He had let Olivia and Kaylee get kidnapped! But I was going to wait until Hannah showed up. She was pretty good at the whole "maim and torture" thing.

Finally, about five minutes later, Hannah walked in. I went over to her, and whispered my plan in her ear. She turned to me, grinned, and nodded. The two of us then walked closer to America, waiting for the right moment.

We watched him like stalkers until he got up from the table, at which point each of us went to one side of him. Then we grabbed his legs and dragged him across the room, listening to the sweet sound of his screams echoing around the room.

At this point I noticed all of the heads that where turned in our direction, though of course they all valued their lives and stayed out of it. So we continued to drag America to the other side of the room as if he were a corpse. When we got there, we looked in other in the eye and Hannah asked with a grin from ear to ear, "You did bring the duct tape right?"

Returning the grin I answered, "Is that even a question?"

All I can say is that, ten minutes later, America was duct taped to the ceiling, hanging over a field of knives that where shrouded in fire as he was swinging back and forth, trying to avoid the axes that where gliding through the air, slowly severing the duct tape. And of course what death trap would be complete without the soothing sound of horror music, floating through the air, as we had "convinced" Austria to play.

Looking up at the masterpiece, I heard England ask, his voice shaking, "How the bloody hell did you two do that?"

Taylor added, "I think the swinging axes were a bit much."

"But it completes the image!" I said.

"That's not cool, you guys!" said Grace. I could tell she wanted to help America get down, but she was too scared of the flames, the knives, and the axes to come close to the table.

"Of course it's not cool Grace; he's hanging over a fire! Duh!" I replied, looking up at America's face. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't. Though thinking about this later, it was probably due to the blood rushing to his head, or maybe it was the fire that was burning the ends of his hair… Oh well it didn't matter.

Then, out of nowhere came the rough sound of Germany's voice yelling, louder than all the other noises in the room. "Stop all this nonsense, right now! And Hannah and Megan, you need to take America down this instant! From now on I will run this meeting. Now while those two are taking America down, does anyone have any ideas of how to rescue Olivia and Kaylee?"

So, Hannah and I trudged over and began to put the fire out, silently cursing Germany for his constant need to be a control freak. And somewhere in the background, I think everyone else was coming up with a pretty awesome plan that was sure to work.

"Wait!" I heard Taylor cry as I was pulling knives out of the table. "We don't even know who took them yet! Shouldn't we call this number?"

"Wait until we get America down from the ceiling," I said. We were almost done; we just needed to get him down.

Somehow, miraculously, we did, and pretty soon he was seated at the table with everyone else, staying very, very far away from Hannah and I. Smart man. He picked up his phone, and dialed the number from the note.

The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was so quiet, everyone could hear the phone ringing. Eventually the other person picked up, and America's expression grew from incredibly serious to incredibly confused.

"Who?"

All of a sudden a voice exploded from the other end of the phone line. "I'M CANADA, YOU IDIOT!"

All the people in the room were silent. Well, we were pretty quiet before, but now we were all dead silent.

"Oh. Yeah," America said. I noticed that he still had red marks from the duct tape. I probably would have laughed, but this was kind of a serious situation.

He continued talking to Canada (who I couldn't believe was the villain), and didn't really say a lot. I had just noticed that Canada was the only nation that wasn't here. How did I not notice that before?

I looked over at Taylor, and I could tell that she was thinking the same thing.

Eventually, America hung up, and we all stared at him, waiting for answers. He took a deep breath. "Okay. He wants me to meet him in one of his houses, in Winnipeg (**A/N: THAT'S IN CANADA! If you get that reference, you are amazing**)."

"So when are we attacking?" I asked. "When are you supposed to meet him?"

"Tomorrow."

And so the planning began. I really hoped that it would work.

The good guys always win, right?

* * *

**Thank God that's over with!**

**You have my awesome friend, Rachel, to thank for most of Megan's POV.**

**She actually wrote quite a bit of it.**

**Which makes sense, seeing as Megan is based off of her.**

**So, thank you, Rachel!**

**And I hope none of you hate me for making Canada the villian. That was Rachel's idea, too. It was originally going to be an evil OC, but about one hundred words into last chapter, I realized that it wasn't aking a lot of sense, and I had to change everything. Thank pasta that I have awesome friends that give me awesome ideas.**

**Please don't hate me for anything! **


	14. The Rescue Mission

**Holy crap, this chapter is long!**

**Over 3000 words!**

**The really sad thing is that I wrote less than a third of this on Wednesday, and the rest today.**

**I really need to get a social life.**

**Anyway, here's the next chapter.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia. She only owns her Oc's, which she's too lazy and brain dead to name rigt now.**

* * *

_***Megan's POV***_

Everything was ready for our rescue. We had an awesome plan that was totally going to work. Now all we had to do was get to Canada's house and implement our amazing plan. However, that's much easier said than done. Especially when America started making suggestions.

"I think we should walk to Canada," he said. I face-palmed. Didn't he know anything about the geography of the other countries? I was able to answer my own question: probably not.

"America, I'm looking up the distance from here to Winnipeg on Google Maps, and it says that it takes 119 hours to walk there," England said, his phone in his hand. "Do you really want to waste all that time, when we could just drive there?"

"How long does it take to drive there then?" Grace asked.

"Seven hours and twenty minutes," England responded. I looked at my watch that I was wearing. It was just after nine at night, and who knew how long it would take to get all of the nations into cars and start driving to Canada? We really did need to get started soon if we were all going to get there in time. We would all need to be there for our amazing plan to work. All of us. Even Sealand, who had somehow managed to sneak in the meeting somehow (How does he keep doing that?). One person could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

"We have to go now," I said. "We can't afford to waste any more time."

"Agreed," Germany said. "Okay everyone, get into groups of five and get into a car. We all have a long night ahead of us."

And then there was a frantic dash out of the room, and into the cars that were waiting for us in the parking lot. I hoped there were enough cars for everyone. Some of the nations had probably taken taxis from…wherever they had been. But I needn't have worried. There were plenty of cars for all of us. In fact, a lot of cars were left at the parking lot. I hoped nobody minded.

It ended up so that I was in a car with Poland, Lithuania, Italy, and Germany. Lithuania was driving, Germany was riding shotgun, and I was squished in between Poland and Italy. Joy.

We had been on the road for about half a minute before the chaos began. And by chaos, I mean Italy and Poland.

"Germany! Germany! Look, it's an Italian restaurant! Do you think they serve pasta there?"

"Oh my God Liet, the other day, I was, like, looking for a new shade of nail polish, and the lady at the store like, totally thought I was a girl! How crazy is that?!"

"Germany! Do you see that kitty over there? It's so cute, ve~!"

"Woah! Like, look at that cool bridge over there!"

I felt like Germany, silently seething while the sound in the car grew steadily louder and louder. I could tell that Germany himself was getting tired of the noise, too. It continued for ten more minutes, before…

"OH MY GOD EVERYONE SHUT UP!" I shouted, finally done with all of the noise. "I AM TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!"

Germany looked at me with respect. "I was just about to say the same thing."

And so the rest of our car ride passed with very little talking, and I started listening to my music. Much more peaceful than the random ramblings of Poland and Italy.

_***Grace's POV***_

While Megan was being annoyed by the unfortunate set of people in her car, I was actually having a pretty good time. Japan was driving, safely, and I was sitting next to him in the front seat. Greece was already sleeping in the back, and Sweden and Finland were sitting side by side.

I let my mind drift, and I started to worry about Olivia and Kaylee. I didn't have any idea if they were okay or not. They probably were, but you never know. Canada had gone completely crazy, and I was afraid he would take it out on them. But I couldn't do anything until tomorrow anyway, so I tried to put it from my mind.

Not too long after we had left, I realized how hungry I was, and I started looking for a drive-thru. Within a few minutes, I saw a new drive-thru Subway. Yes, they actually have those now!

"Japan! Japan, you have to go there! I need my Subway! Or else I'm gonna die!" I clutched my stomach dramatically and pretended to fall over. But the seatbelt stopped me from going too far over the edge of the seat. Because Japan is nice, he obliged and pulled into the line. I ordered the food for everyone, because I was the only one with an accent that the drive-thru person could understand.

When I got my food, I opened it up and was very happy to see an amazing tuna melt waiting for me. I love tuna melts. They are so amazing! I mean, they are cheesy, and they have tuna! What is not awesome about that?

I finished my sandwich at some point, but I'm not really sure because I fell asleep pretty soon after eleven. I needed a lot of rest for tomorrow. It was going to be a big day.

_***Taylor's POV***_

"Tell me, how did it happen that all three of you ended up in the same car?" I asked while looking at Spain, who was sitting next to me in the front seat. I was driving, and France and Prussia sat on either side of Austria in the back seat, who looked really, really uncomfortable right now. Poor Austria.

"I don't think that anybody was really paying attention to who's going in which car," Austria said through clenched teeth. "Though I do wish I wasn't in this one."

"I don't know~," France said. "I quite like this arrangement!" He laughed his signature laugh and wrapped an arm around Austria's shoulder.

I laughed lightly at France and turned back to face the road. I had volunteered to drive because I know I can stay awake for a long time. I stayed up for thirty hours straight once. And I didn't even have any caffeine.

"Okay, what do you guys want from Starbucks?" I asked. Didn't want to accidentally fall asleep at the wheel now, did I?

"Ah, I will have a frappuccino!" France said.

"Is there anything with tomatoes in it?" Spain asked, perking up in his seat. I bit my tongue to stop from laughing.

"Sorry Spain, but they don't have any tomato flavored drinks at this Starbucks," I said. He made a pouty-face and slumped back in his seat, obviously disappointed.

"Hey Austria, Prussia, you guys want anything?" I asked. Austria shook his head a little bit, and Prussia just sort of ignored me.

"Prussia? Prussia. PRUSSIA!"

"What?" he said, appearing to snap out of some sort of trance. "What do you want?" he asked grumpily.

"Do you want anything from Starbucks?" I asked.

"Oh. _Nein," _he said. He seemed much more…reserved than usual. I guess it was because Olivia and Kaylee were missing. I was pretty worried, too.

I got France's frappuccino and my black coffee, and then we got on the highway, ready to head up to Canada.

_***Hannah's POV***_

I had a very, well, _interesting _trip on the way to Canada.

For one thing, I was in the same car as America, who was still terrified of Megan and I for what we did earlier. England was driving the car, and America rode shotgun, sitting as far away from me as possible. I was sitting in the backseat, against the window on the left side of the car. Latvia was next to me, in the middle seat, and Russia sat on his other side.

Needless to say, Russia and I amused ourselves for over an hour terrorizing poor little Latvia. He was shaking so badly it looked like he was freezing. But hey, it was fun.

We were just passing Grand Rapids when I thought I heard a weird noise coming from right behind me. I could tell that Russia heard it, too.

"What is that?" he asked. I shrugged my shoulders and motioned for everyone to quiet down. They complied, and then we heard it.

"Marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage."

Russia froze. He knew who that voice belonged to, and so did I. But just to make sure, I peeked over the edge of the seat.

Sure enough, there was Belarus, sitting in the back of the car and rocking back and forth, muttering the word, "Marriage," over and over again. I hoped she wouldn't notice me staring at her, but no such luck. She had noticed that we were all quiet, and looked up to see me staring at her.

"Oh no," I said, shrinking back down into my seat.

She rose over the seat and towered over us, looking like a demon. Russia shrank back in his seat, and I hid behind Latvia.

"Become one with me, Brother Russia!" she said.

"N-no!" he cried, trying to hide behind Latvia with me. I pushed him away from me and pulled Latvia in front of me even more.

"You're on your own here, Russia!" I cried. I looked to the front, where America was watching the scene with a terrified look on his face, and England was still trying to concentrate on driving. I wished him good luck.

Belarus then reached over the seat and pulled Russia into the back with her. I totally would have helped him out, but Belarus is terrifying, even when she isn't in "merge" mode. So I just sat back, and tried to ignore the very disturbing sounds coming from right behind me.

_***Back to Megan's POV***_

"Megan! Megan! We're here! Wake up!"

I sat up, coming face to face with a very enthusiastic Italy.

"Italy! Get off me!" I got impatient waiting for him to move so I just pushed him off of me and got out of the car. It was pretty bright outside and I looked at my watch. 6:03.

"Wait, where are we?" I asked as I took in my surroundings. All I saw were a lot of trees, a lot of cars, and a lot of nations.

"We are in the forest, not too far from Canada's house," Germany said. "We thought it best not to drive up to the front door, worried that it would raise an alarm.

"Ah," I said. "That makes sense." I hadn't really thought of that before.

Turning away from Germany, I saw Hannah getting out of her car, followed by Latvia, a very pale and shaking Russia, and a very satisfied Belarus. Wait, what? I ran over to Hannah, and asked her what had happened.

"You _really _don't want to know," she said, shivering a little bit. I dropped the subject. Hannah did not get scared at a lot of things, and I didn't want to know what Belarus had done to get her this scared.

"MEGAN!" came a shout from the other side of the road. I only had time to look over my shoulder before Taylor crashed into me.

"Taylor!" I said back. "What is the matter with you?"

"Megan! We stopped at Starbucks five times, and I had so much coffee!" she said, literally jumping up and down. Oh. Now it all made sense.

"Please let go of my arms," I said. She did.

"When are we gonna go save Olivia and Kaylee?" Taylor whined.

"Soon, now stop whining!" I told her.

Soon enough, all the nations, plus us humans, were gathered with Germany in front.

"All right," he began. "We are going to walk over there in a safe, _controlled _manner. America will go in first, and we will wait for the signal before following him in. Switzerland, do you have the weapons?"

We all turned to where Switzerland was standing, with a cart full of guns, darts, grenades, and pretty much every sort of weapon you can imagine.

I practically ran right over to him and said, "Can I have a gun?"

He blinked before saying, "Sure. Here you go," and handing me a small pistol.

"Great!"

The more experienced countries (so not Italy) got weapons too, and soon we were ready for the attack. We moved through the forest instead of the main road, avoiding detection by security cameras or guards. Soon enough we were at the edge of the forest, watching America walk by himself to the front door. It was opened very slightly, and then America pushed through the door and it shut.

"So what do we do now?" I asked Germany, who was pretty close to me.

"We wait for the signal."

_***Kaylee's POV***_

"Rock, paper, scissors!" Olivia and I chanted as our fists flew through the air. Mine came down in rock, hers in paper.

"Ha! I win!" she said.

"Yeah, whatever." I said. We were all alone in the basement. I hadn't seen Canada all day, and frankly, I was glad. He was really scary now, not at all like his normal, quiet self. But I really wished America would hurry up. I didn't have a single idea about what Canada wanted from him, but it had to be better than us staying down here for the rest of time. I wondered if any of our friends had bothered to tell our parents what was going on. Olivia's parents didn't have to find out; they were still on their cruise. And my parents trusted me a lot, so I was sure they wouldn't ask too many questions.

Suddenly, the door started to open, and Canada entered. Great. But he was followed by none other than America!

"America!" Olivia yelled, her hands gripping the bars of our cell. Now that I thought about it, it was a lot like the cell in HetaOni, except smaller, and with two chairs inside.

"Olivia!" he cried. I shrunk back, hurt at being forgotten, but then Canada grabbed America's arm before he could rush over to us.

"Let's discuss the subject of payment first," Canada said.

"Oh. Right." But America didn't take his eyes off of Olivia. As I watched, he moved his hand from his side to his pocket, and reached it inside. I thought I heard a little noise when he did that, but I shrugged it off.

"Wait, what were we talking about?" he asked Canada. But before Canada could answer, I heard a strange rumbling noise coming from above us. I looked up, and so did everyone else. Except America; he was looking at the door.

And I figured out why in a moment.

The door to the basement burst open, and out spilled Prussia, Megan, Taylor, Hannah, Germany, and what looked like most, if not all of the nations.

But before Olivia and I could react, Canada had pushed a button installed in the wall of the basement. A loud alarm was sounded, and several guard people rushed in to the basement, too. How did they all _fit _in here?

But the countries (and our friends) didn't wait at all before attacking the guards. It was amazing. I didn't even know that Megan knew how to use a gun! And the way that Taylor and Grace were kicking the guards in the groin, well, it made me really proud.

"Hey, look at Hannah and Russia!" Olivia said, pointing to the mass of people. I looked. Hannah was beating people to the ground with her scarf, and Russia was hitting people in the face. They were both taking out more guards than the people around them.

At some point, Prussia came over and broke the lock of the cell we were in. The two of us rushed out, ready to help the others.

We were fighting for what felt like forever, and I only managed to take out about four or five guys. I was starting to get really tired, and I forgot to look around for attackers. So I didn't see Canada aiming a gun at me, and I didn't see him pull the trigger.

But God, I definitely felt the bullet lodge itself in my leg.

"AHH!" I cried out, falling down. I couldn't think about anything except the huge pain in my leg. It felt like it was consuming me, and all I wanted to do was make the pain stop.

"Kaylee!" I heard someone cry out. I managed to stop focusing on the pain long enough to see that it was Prussia. He leaned down next to me. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I-I don't k-know," I said, still trying to think around the pain. "It's just my leg."

"Hey, can you stand?" he asked.

I slowly nodded and tried to stand up, but nearly fell over. Prussia caught me, and we looked into each other's eyes.

"I-" I said.

"Yeah?" Prussia asked, his face really close to mine.

But before I could say anything, I heard a shout from behind me. Prussia and I turned around to see Olivia and Canada wrestling over a gun that was in Canada's hands. No one else paid them any attention; they were all fighting. But Prussia and I weren't, so we watched, transfixed, as the two of them kept fighting over the gun. For a few seconds, it looked like Olivia was going to succeed in pulling the gun away from Canada.

But then everything went wrong.

In one quick motion, so fast that if I had blinked, I would have missed it, Canada pulled the gun into his chest, and it went off. The bullet shot straight into Olivia's stomach.

She had a surprised look on her face, and her hand went to her stomach, where a lot of blood was spilling out. Then her eyes closed and she collapsed, leaving Canada standing there with a shocked look on his face.

I think I screamed, but I could barely hear it. My head was pounding from the pain in my leg. My scream drew the attention of everyone in the room, and they all looked at Olivia, now surrounded by her own blood.

"Olivia!" America cried for the second time today, rushing to her side. I wanted to go there too, but I couldn't even support my weight on my leg, not to mention walking. I could only watch helplessly as America felt her wrist for a pulse, getting his signature bomber jacket soaked in her blood.

* * *

**CLIFFHANGER! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!**

**Seriously, I bet none of you saw that coming!**

**Except for the people I told.**

**I kinda fail at writing fight scenes, so you may just want to ignore that bit. I really wanted get to the point where Olivia gets shot.**

**And updates may be non-existent over the coming week, because of this camp I'm a counselor at. I'll try for Saturday, at the earliest. After that, I'm pretty much free until school begins.**

**Oh God. School.**

**NOOOOOOOOOOOO!**


	15. The Aftermath

**I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!**

**I know this is nearly a week later than I said it would be.**

**And it's not very long, either.**

**I can give many, many excuses for not having this up, but it just doesn't make up for the fact that I am so unbelievably late. **

**Disclaimer: It's a pretty good thing Tealgirl713 doesn't own Hetalia, because if she did, USUK would _so _be canon. Wait, maybe it would be better if she owned it...**

* * *

The blood was spilling all over the floor, and the people nearest to Olivia (America and Taylor) were desperately trying to get her to stop bleeding. It wasn't working very well. Kaylee got a bit squeamish when she saw blood. Add that to the fact that she herself was bleeding a lot, and it was a miracle she hadn't passed out yet. But she did feel herself growing very weak.

Her brain began to go fuzzy, and she only had enough time to turn and face Prussia again before she collapsed in his arms.

He panicked at first, but then he felt her pulse, which was arguably stronger than Olivia's had to have been. He took off his jacket that he'd been wearing and wrapped it around her injured leg. Hopefully, it would help staunch the bleeding.

"Kaylee!" came a cry from across the room. Prussia turned around just in time to see Megan rushing towards them, a very worried expression on her face. She slightly pushed Prussia away and took his place, sitting next to Kaylee. Prussia was going to protest, but thought better of it. This wasn't the best time to be having petty arguments.

Trusting Megan to be able to take care of Kaylee for a little while, Prussia walked over to where Olivia was lying down, Taylor covering her wound with her hands. It was bad, though. The blood was still leaking through her fingers, but it was better than nothing. Looking at America and Taylor, both of them were ashen-faced, as if they both expected the worse.

Attempting to be comforting, Prussia placed a hand on America's shoulder. "Hey man, everything is going to be okay." But America shrugged the hand off, and turned to face Prussia, an angry expression on his face.

"Of course _you _can say that!" he yelled, his face quickly going from white to red. "You're not the one with a girlfriend bleeding her fucking _heart _out! She could _die, _Prussia! But you don't care about her, do you?"

"That is enough!" Germany shouted, stopping America from continuing his tirade. "America, I know you are very concerned about Olivia's well-being, and I don't blame you for being angry. But that doesn't mean you can just yell at anyone who talks to you! _Mein bruder _was just trying to be nice."

America's expression changed in an instant. He went from furious to depressed in a blink of an eye. "I guess you're right," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, Prussia."

"It's okay, I know you didn't mean it," Prussia replied, as subdued as America was right now.

Canada had been standing right next to them the whole time, but he hadn't made a move to run, or moved at all. He was still as a statue, staring openmouthed at the scene in front of him.

"A-America," he finally said, his voice back to the normal, whispering quality it normally possessed, "I-I'm so s-sorry. I didn't mean to shoot her!" He seemed to be back to his normal self, and that claim was further justified by the fact that his face was full of guilt, and confusion.

America's head snapped up and he looked at Canada, a mixture of pain and anger on his face. "Didn't _mean _to? The gun was in your hand! You pulled the trigger!"

"It was an accident," Canada said. "I never meant for anyone to get hurt like this."

"Well what did you think was going to happen? You _kidnapped _two people! And one of them happened to be my girlfriend! When did you _ever _think that no one was going to get hurt?"

Canada fell silent, unable to come up with an adequate response. He turned around and went to the cell that still had a broken lock, opened the door, and, to everyone's astonishment, closed it behind him, sitting down on one of the chairs, facing all of the people in the room.

"What?" he said, in response to the stares he was receiving. "America is right; all of this is my fault. It's my fault half the people in this room are injured, it's my fault Kaylee has a bullet in her leg, and it's my fault that Olivia is now lying in a pool of blood, probably dying. If anyone deserves to be in here right now, it's me."

No one responded to him. They all stared at him, waiting for him to go insane, shooting off a gun and punching people in the face. But he didn't. He just sat there, staring at the floor.

Taylor was the first to come to her senses. "Okay people, you can stop gaping at Canada. I mean it. Olivia and Kaylee are both unconscious, and they are going to need medical attention. I don't think you guys want anyone else to find out about the existence of the countries, so not a lot of you can come upstairs with us. The rest of you will be okay with staying here until we clear out, right? Grace, could you please call for an ambulance and tell them that we had an accident with guns?" Her voice was shaking slightly, but she had gathered herself enough to say what needed to be said.

"Yeah. Okay," Grace said, pulling out her cell phone. Germany and Prussia picked up Kaylee together and began to carry her up the stairs. America and Taylor followed with Olivia, after Taylor had stolen a scarf off of someone and wrapped it around her wound. Megan and Grace came too, not wanting to be separated from their friends. The rest of the countries stayed there, along with Hannah, who had decided to "keep an eye on Canada" as she so called it. Everyone steered clear of her. She did not seem to be in a happy mood.

Once outside, the girls were set down gently on the ground, and Grace told everyone that the ambulance was on its way. The six people didn't say a single word to each other, they just sat there, waiting, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

When it did, everything passed by in a blur. Within five minutes, Kaylee and Olivia were in the ambulance, being driven to the hospital. America was sitting by Olivia, and Prussia was sitting by Kaylee. Megan had protested, saying that she should be the one with Kaylee, but Grace, who knew about Kaylee and Prussia's crushes on each other, somehow convinced Megan to let him go to the hospital with her. But she hadn't looked happy at the news of their mutual affection.

The ride to the ambulance was completely silent. Neither Prussia nor America talked the entire time. Luckily, they weren't in there for very long.

When they got to the hospital, Kaylee and Olivia were quickly rushed into different rooms for surgery, and Prussia and America sat themselves down on a couple of the chairs in the waiting room.

All was silent for a few moments until Prussia turned to America and said, "Hey, do you think the girls are going to be okay?"

America looked back at him glumly before replying, "I don't know. I just don't know."

* * *

After about twenty minutes or so, Megan, Taylor, and Grace showed up. Prussia waved them over to where they were sitting, and the girls joined them. As soon as they had sat down, Grace bombarded them with questions.

"What's going on? Where are they? Are they okay?"

"I don't know," answered Prussia. "These unawesome nurses won't tell us anything!"

After that the group fell into an uncomfortable silence. Uncomfortable became anxious when they saw a nurse approaching them, a clipboard in her hands.

"You guys here for Kaylee Clark?" she asked. They all nodded, apprehension growing. "Well, she just got out of surgery, you know, to have the bullet taken out of her leg? Anyway, she's still recovering, but you can go see her now, if you'd like."

"Really? She's going to be okay?" Prussia asked, hardly daring to hope that it was true.

"Yes, she's going to be fine," the nurse said, smiling. She told them what room Kaylee was in, and the small crowd of people made their way to find it.

When they got to the room, a nurse standing at the door told them that only two people could be in the room with Kaylee at a time. Prussia pushed his way in, followed by Megan, who had a very scary look on her face.

Kaylee was sleeping when they entered the room. She looked better than she had back at Canada's house. There was some actual color in her cheeks now, and the blood had been cleaned up. The only thing that remained of the wound was a thick bandage covering the area where she had been shot.

Prussia started to sit in the chair that was right next to the bed, but Megan pulled him back and wheeled him to face her.

"Look," she said, her eyes looking right into his soul, "you may have a crush on Kaylee, but that doesn't mean I approve. In fact, I think she could do much better than the likes of you."

Prussia gulped. This girl was _scary. _

"Unfortunately," Megan continued, "she seems to like you, too. And as much as I hate it, I like it when she's happy. So I will allow you to date her. But," and at this she slightly dug her nails into Prussia's skin, "if you hurt her in any way at all, so help me God, I will _castrate _you."

Out of all the insults and threats in Megan's words, only one thing she said registered in Prussia's brain. Kaylee liked him back. She really did. He smiled to himself as he thought about what he would say to her when she woke up.

* * *

**Fail chapter is fail.**

**Sorry nothing interesting happened, except for more fluffiness.**

**I didn't feel like moving the plot along a lot yet, because then I would be rushing things.**

**And I like making this story long.**

**Oh, did I say that I put up a oneshot while I wasn't updating this? Go check it out, it's called _A Still, Quiet Evening._**

**Shameless advertising. You've gotta love it.**

**And now I will go draw something.**


	16. Hospitalization

**Meh. I am really, truly sorry that this took so long to be written.**

**I could give you a lot of excuses, but I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to apologize.**

**And a pre-warning: I don't know a lot about what goes on in hospitals, or recovery times for injuries, or the amount of time surgeries take. So please, ignore the mistakes and just try to enjoy the chapter.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia. Oh, but she wishes she did.**

* * *

_***Kaylee's POV***_

"Hey, I think she's waking up!"

"No shit, Sherlock!"

"Hey! You can't say that to the Awesome Me!"

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I had to wake up to. Feel sorry for me.

"Both of you, shut up and let me sleep some more," I said, still not opening my eyes.

"Kaylee! You _are _awake!" I felt a hand on my shoulder and my eyes flew open. Standing above me was none other than Prussia himself, with Megan right behind him, silently seething in the corner. She looked _mad._

"Hey, Prussia!" I said. "Hey, Prussia, guess what?"

"What?" he asked.

"You're awesome," I said, tilting my head to the side, smiling widely at him. He broke into a smug grin, and looked back at me.

"_Kesesese_," he laughed. "_Ja, _I know,"

"…But not as awesome as me~!" I said, laughing a little bit before turning away from him. He looked sad. "Now go away, I want to see Megan~!"

"Hi Megan!" I was facing her now, and her steely gaze softened a bit as she looked at me. "What's up?"

"The ceiling," she said with a complete deadpan expression. I laughed.

"You're funny," I giggled like a dumb blonde. "I wanna tell you something..."

"Yes?" she questioned, stepping closer.

"Come here." She obliged, walking closer until she was about a foot away from me, and leaned in a little bit.

"Hi." I said once I had dubbed her to be close enough. I started laughing as she sat there staring at me. "That's all. You may return to your post." Prussia snickered in the background before Megan shot him a look that silenced the outburst.

"Kaylee, what was the last thing you remember before waking up just now?" Megan asked. I studied her face as she talked. She looked happy enough that I was awake, but there was definite concern and worry in her eyes. It made me nervous.

"Hmm," I began. I thought back, trying to remember what had happened before I woke up here. "Oh! I remember having this really huge pain in my leg…" I trailed off, and pulled bad the bed sheet to reveal my leg, covered in bandages. But it didn't hurt as much as it looked like it should. That was probably the pain meds, though.

"What happened, exactly?" I asked. "I can remember bits and pieces, but not a lot."

Prussia pulled away from me for a second, and looked at Megan. She gave him a small nod and he turned back to me. I could see sadness and regret in his eyes.

"What happened?" I asked him again, a little more forcefully.

He cleared his throat. "Do you remember being kidnapped by Canada?"

I nodded. I remembered that much. "I remember pretty well up until America entered the basement. Then it starts to get a little hazy."

"Okay," he said. "Well, we all charged in when America gave us the signal, and then I got you guys out of the cell. After that, I lost sight of you, until I heard a gunshot, and then you were bleeding in your leg." He pointed to my leg. While he was explaining this, I started remembering more about what had happened. By the time he was done explaining, I clearly remembered Canada shooting me. And then Canada shooting…

"Wait, what about Olivia?" I asked, shooting up again. "I remember her getting shot by Canada, too. How is she? Is she going to be okay?"

Megan walked a little closer to me and said, "We don't really know how Olivia's doing at the moment. She was sent into surgery the second you guys got here, and a nurse came to tell us you were finished about half an hour ago."

"She was shot in the stomach. That doesn't sound very good," I said, a bad feeling settling in my stomach. I felt a little sick from worry.

"Hey, you're fine, right?" Prussia said with a smile on his face. "So Olivia should be fine, too!"

I wish I could have believed him. I really do. But my mom is a nurse, and she told me that stomach wounds are some of the hardest to treat. There are so many vital organs down there that could be punctured. The heart, lungs, your stomach itself, kidneys, and many other organs. It would be a miracle if the bullet missed them all.

We sat there for a little while longer, the three of us, trying to talk about anything but Olivia, as if talking about her would jinx her. After a few more minutes, I heard a knocking noise. I turned to the door to the room and saw Grace and Taylor, waving enthusiastically at me through the glass. I smiled and waved back at them.

"I think they want to come talk to you, Kaylee," Megan said, getting up. "Come on, Prussia, let's give them a turn."

"Why do you guys have to leave?" I asked. "Can't they just come in?"

"A nurse outside your door said that there could only be two visitors at once," Megan said. "Come on Prussia, you can talk to Kaylee later." She then proceeded to grab his arm and pull him out of the room. He winked at me as the door shut. I smiled back.

Barely a second later, the door swung open again, and Grace and Taylor were standing there, both with smiles on their faces. But they, too, look worried about Olivia.

"No news about Olivia yet, huh?" I asked, looking at them.

"Nope," Taylor sighed. "America's going crazy with worry out there. You have no idea. It's really sweet, how much he cares about her."

"It's really nice that she's got someone like that, you know?" Grace said. "I really wish I had someone like that there for me."

"You'll find them one day, Grace!" I told her cheerfully. She smiled at me.

"So, how are you and Prussia?" she asked me, a sly grin on her face.

"What do you mean?" I asked. She had better not have told anyone what I said about him!

"Yeah, what about you and Prussia?" Taylor asked, a grin identical to Grace's on her face.

"Grace," I said, my voice filled with venom, "exactly how many people did you _tell?" _

"I told Olivia, Megan, and Taylor." Oh. Well, at least she didn't tell America. Or Prussia. I think I might just crawl up into a little ball and die if he ever found out.

"So, you have a little crush on Mr. Five Meters, huh?" Taylor teased.

"Shut up, he's right outside the door!" I said. "And, yes, I do." A part of my mind was wondering why on earth I was admitting this, but it may have had something to do with the drugs in my system.

"Well, admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it!" Grace said jokingly. I rolled my eyes at her.

"I do not have a problem!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, I don't know," Taylor teased. "I think that anyone who likes Prussia is a little bit insane. Are you sure the bullet didn't permanently damage your brain?"

"Shut up!" I said, hitting her in the arm with as much force as I could gather. Which really wasn't much. At least I didn't feel as loopy as before.

The three of us then fell into normal conversation again, as we always did. I loved talking to my friends about anything and everything. It just felt right, sitting here with them. Just as if everything else was normal.

* * *

Out in the hallway, America was still fairly quiet as Megan was staring daggers at Prussia.

"What? What did I do?" Prussia said, finally noticing her stare.

"Nothing, yet," Megan said.

"Then why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I still don't really trust you to be able to take care of Kaylee and understand what she needs in a relationship."

"What?! But I haven't even asked her out on a date yet!" Prussia exclaimed.

"Exactly. Consider this a pre-warning. Do anything, anything at all to hurt her, and I will _destroy _you. Got it?"

He nodded rather quickly and backed away from Megan, looking more than a little scared of her. As he should be. She just smirked at him and turned away, facing back towards America again.

"Hey, America," Megan said, attempting to start a conversation with him. "America, just so you know, I really don't think you should blame yourself for what happened back there at Canada's house. It wasn't your fault."

It looked like she had gotten through to him with those words. He turned towards her, looking utterly defeated. There were bags under his eyes, and he was slumped into the chair he was sitting in.

"Not my fault?" he said, his voice slightly hoarse. "Of course it's my fault. I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me, and Olivia and Kaylee got hurt because of it. I'm supposed to be the hero, and I failed to protect anyone."

"America, you can't protect everyone all the time," Megan assured him, trying to be as comforting as Megan could be. "And it isn't your fault that any of this happened. You can't blame yourself for anything that happened."

"But at the meeting, you blamed me for them getting kidnapped," America protested, still as downcast as before.

"America, if you knew me like my friends do, you'd know that I always blame the bad things on people I don't really care that much about. Even though Canada was the one that deserved that blame, I took it out on you. And I'm sorry for that."

Now she really had America's attention. Maybe it was the apology, maybe it was her softer tone of voice, but America seemed more willing to listen to her.

"You may not be the smartest person I've ever met-far from it-but I do know that you genuinely care about Olivia. And she cares about you, too. She would hate it to see you so upset about this. And I know she wouldn't blame you. She's too smart for that."

He gave her a small smile. "I guess you're right," he said.

Megan laughed. "Of course I'm right! Now cheer up. You don't want to be all grumpy and sad when Olivia wakes up now, do you?"

"No," he agreed. And as he was saying that, another nurse, different that the one before.

"Are you here for Olivia Pearson?" she asked. America bolted up out of his seat and nodded vigorously, and the other two followed the nurse to the room Olivia was in.

"Pre-warning, she may be a little disoriented," the nurse said, before opening the door to the room. All three of them went in at once, and saw Olivia lying on the bed, a bandage covering her stomach area.

"Megan!" she said, grinning at her friend. Megan went forward to her while the other two stayed back (America looking very put out).

"Olivia! I'm so glad you're okay!" Megan said, a genuine smile upon her face.

"Yeah, so am I," Olivia said. "But I do have one question," she asked with a confused expression.

"What is it?"

"Who are those guys?" Olivia said, gesturing to America and Prussia. "I've never seen them before in my life."

* * *

**I bet you guys hate me now, right?**

**About the next chapter: I will put in a conscious effort to get it out within two weeks. But, as school is starting soon, I really don't know when I'll be able to write.**

**On the plus side, I may actually know some French by the time I wrie the next chapter...**

**See you then!**


	17. When is life ever fair?

**School is stupid. I get way too much homework.**

**But on a good note, including this chapter, I've planned out five chapters for this story! That's what happens when you're bored in Algebra 2, I guess.**

**To make up for my abnormally long absense, I wrote two chapters for you guys to read today. Here is the first one.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia, or any of the characters found there.**

* * *

"I've never seen them before in my life."

Megan looked shocked when I said those words, and she glanced back at the two strangers, who were both frozen. The one closer to me, the blonde one, looked especially upset. But I really didn't know him. So why was he here? And who was the other one, the one with white hair and red eyes? I felt as if I should know them, but I just didn't. What was going on?

"Olivia, you're kidding, right?" Megan said, still looking shocked. I shook my head.

"I'm serious Megan, I really don't know who these guys are!" Why couldn't she just accept that I didn't know them? "And why exactly am I in the hospital? The doctors said that I got shot, but they didn't really give me a lot of details."

While I was trying to explain myself to her, I saw the blonde guy turn to one of the doctors and I assumed he was asking him why I didn't remember. The doctor must have given him a satisfactory answer, because he gave a curt nod and turned back towards Megan and I, this time with his head bowed a little bit. I wondered who he was, and why he seemed to care so much about me. I really wished I could remember him.

"Olivia, what is the last thing you remember before waking up here?" Megan asked, a very serious and solemn expression on her face.

"I think we were at my house, getting ready to go meet the others in the Aerial Bridge parking lot." I said. "Is that right?"

I saw Megan close her eyes for a moment, bite her lip, and then open them again. From that, I gathered that I hadn't answered correctly at all. "Olivia, that was two weeks ago. It's July 5th now."

"What?!" I bolted upright. "But that can't be! Are you telling me I don't remember two whole weeks of my life? That's insane!"

"Olivia, she's right," said the blonde guy. "It's July 5th."

"Wait, how do you even know me?" I asked, looking at him again. I had a definite feeling that I should know him, that something about him was definitely familiar.

He looked at me, his eyes full of dejection. I felt really bad about that. But it wasn't my fault I got shot or had amnesia.

Megan answered my question. "He's your boyfriend, Olivia," she said with a dead serious expression.

"Wait, what?" I shouted, eyes flicking back to the blonde guy. "But he can't be! I'm not dating anyone!"

"You two started dating four days after we got back from Washington," Megan said. "We met him just a few hours after we met up with the others."

Oh. So _that _was why he seemed so familiar. But was it? I felt like I was missing something else huge here, directly related to him. What could it be? And who was that other guy?

I turned back to my…boyfriend, I guess, and said, "Om my God, I am so sorry. Um…what's your name? I'm really sorry that I have to ask that. I don't know why I can't remember."

He gave a small, sad smile. "No, it's okay. But you probably won't believe me if I told you."

"She will if I back you up," Megan said. My boyfriend nodded at her and looked back at me, clearing his throat.

"My name is Alfred F. Jones, but you and your friends call me America."

No. Nope. This was not happening right now. The guy standing in front of me was not America.

"What?!" I shouted. He looked at me like he'd expected this reaction. "Yeah, no. That isn't possible. You can't be America. There is no way in hell that you're America."

The sudden change in his facial expression made me think that he hadn't expected this reaction. He turned to Megan, presumably for help.

"Olivia, America's telling the truth. He's your boyfriend."

"No, he's not!" I said, my voice rising. "That can't be true because America is a character from an anime show. Anime shows are not real."

"He's telling the truth, Olivia. You believed him when he told you the first time."

Suddenly it all made sense. Why Megan seemed to believe him.

"I see," I said, smirking a little bit. "You thought it would be funny to play a trick on me right after I woke up, huh?" As I was saying these words, I noticed the third guy, the albino, back out of the door. Not that I cared.

"It's not a joke!" the guy said, clenching his fists in frustration.

"Be quiet, you," I said. Then I turned to Megan. "Nice try, but I'm not stupid. You'll have to try harder to get me to believe you."

"Olivia! Please!" the first guy said, looking really distraught.

"America, she's not going to listen to us," Megan said to him. "We should probably go. We'll come back later.

And then they left the room. I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my bed, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

_***Kaylee's POV***_

"Wait, so you're telling me that Hannah volunteered to keep watch over Canada all by herself?" I said incredulously, staring up at Taylor and Grace. They had been briefing me on everything that happened since I'd blacked out, back at the house. It was weird, thinking that I had missed several hours of the day.

"Yeah," affirmed Grace. "You should have seen the look on Canada's face! He was so scared!"

"I bet!" I said, laughing as well. Hannah was a scary, scary person when she wanted to be. She could still be pretty scary even when she didn't mean to. But I still loved her.

"I almost feel bad for him," Grace said.

"How can you say that?" Taylor said. "He shot Kaylee and Olivia!"

"Yeah, but you saw him after it happened! He tried to lock himself inside the cell! He feels really, really bad."

"Or he's faking to get off easier."

"You don't know! I don't think you can fake that guilt. If he hadn't felt guilty, he would have taken out the rest of us while we were busy taking care of Olivia and Kaylee!"

I cut into their argument, saying, "Hey guys, I don't appreciate you talking about me like I'm not even here!"

That stopped them. Taylor turned to me and apologized, before she said, "I kind of forgot you were here, Kaylee. You're usually not this quiet."

"I don't know, I do feel a bit tired," I said.

"Well maybe you should lie down and go to sleep!" Grace said, smiling at me. I smiled back at her.

"I'll be fine, Grace. I want to talk to you guys some more."

It was at that point when Prussia re-entered the room.

"Woah, how did you get in?" Taylor said. "I thought there were only supposed to be two visitors at a time."

"No one was out there," he said simply.

"Hey, where are America and Megan?" Grace said, looking into the hallway. They must not have been out there.

"Olivia woke up."

"Really?!" Taylor exclaimed. "How is she? Is she alright?"

"I don't really know," he said, a bit of a confused expression on his face.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, she doesn't really remember anything that happened when you guys went to the beach."

"What?" Taylor said. I was shocked, too. She couldn't remember anything about the countries? And that was two weeks ago! She'd lost two whole weeks of her life. That would be horrible. I found myself nearly tearing up at the thought of my friends suffering like that. And what about America? Oh, he must have been crushed.

"That's terrible…" I said, still in a bit of a shock.

"It gets worse," he said, his expression darkening. "She didn't believe America when he told her who he was. At all. She thinks it's just a huge joke."

"But she has to remember who he is!" Grace said. "She will, won't she?"

"Most likely," assured Taylor. "It'll probably only be a few days before-"She was cut short when the door opened again. This time Megan walked in, a frustrated and upset air about her, followed by America, who just looked depressed. It really bothered me to see him like that. He was supposed to be happy all the time, not this sad mess.

"Anything else happen while I was gone?" Prussia asked them. By the tone in his voice, I knew he wasn't expecting anything good.

"Not really," Megan said. "I figured that we'd try again later. You know, see if she's remembered anything new. It's the only thing we really can do. Trying to convince her of something that seems completely absurd right after she woke up really wasn't a good idea."

"She should remember soon, shouldn't she?" Grace asked.

"I think so," Taylor answered. "It's probably just a side-effect from everything that happened to her over the past day. But I'm sure she'll remember eventually, just not at first."

"But how long will that take?" I asked. Prussia looked at me, and we locked gazes.

"I don't know," he said. "But for America's sake, I hope it's soon."

* * *

**I didn't really like this chapter. And this chapter did not like me.**

**That's probably half the reason this is so late.**


	18. Weather Patterns

**And here is the second chapter for the day! I wouldn't expect a third, unless I suddenly develop to abity to travel through time. Because I unfortunately have a lot of homework to get through, and even though I would love to devote more time to writing this, I sadly cannot.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 still doesn't own Hetalia.**

_***Kaylee's**** POV***_

It was really foggy outside today. That was the first thing I'd noticed when I woke up and looked out of the window. The fog was so thick that you couldn't see anything outside. Not even the ground. And we were only on the third floor of the hotel, so it wasn't like it was a very long way down.

I had been discharged from the hospital the previous day, and had joined the others in the hotel they had purchased rooms from two days ago, after they had left the hospital. It was now July 7th.

I was sharing a room with Grace again, and I was the first one up. I grabbed my crutches from the wall next to my bed and pulled myself up, careful to keep the weight off my injured foot. It hurt a lot when I tried to stand on it, so I just used my crutches to get around. But I hadn't left the room since yesterday, so it wasn't like I had to walk very far. I hobbled over to the kitchenette and set about making breakfast. There was some instant oatmeal on the counter that Grace had bought two days ago. I didn't really like oatmeal, especially the instant kind, but it was food, and I was hungry. I took a packet and poured the oats into a bowl. Then I added water and placed the bowl in the microwave.

While it was cooking, I amused myself by looking out the window and trying to distinguish shapes in the fog. I failed miserably. When the timer went off, I turned around and took out the bowl. That really didn't look appealing. I looked through the other things Grace had bought until I found some brown sugar. Better than nothing. I opened it up and began heaping spoonful after spoonful on the oatmeal. The less of the oatmeal I could see, the better. While I was doing this, I didn't see that Grace had woken up and was now standing behind me. Which is why I nearly fell over when she said, "Good morning, Kaylee!"

"Grace! You scared me!"

"Oh! I'm sorry!"

"It's okay," I said. "Can you carry my oatmeal to the table for me?"

She looked at me quizzically. "I thought you didn't like oatmeal."

"It was the only food I could find. So I didn't really have a choice."

"You know I bought cinnamon rolls, right?" she said, pulling out a six-pack of the glorious food from inside one of the counters. "I know how much you like them, so I bought them for you!"

"What?" I said, a little exasperated. "You mean I made this for nothing?"

"No, I'll eat it!" she said, taking the bowl and going over to the table, leaving me alone with the cinnamon rolls. I took one of them, put it on a plate, and microwaved it for twenty seconds. That was the perfect time. When it was done heating up, I could smell the heavenly scent, and I hadn't even opened the microwave door yet.

"Hey Grace?" I called. "Can you come and carry my cinnamon roll to the table? And don't eat it. It is mine."

"I wouldn't eat it!" She laughed and took the plate from me, placing it on the table next to her bowl of that accursed food. I followed as fast as I could on crutches, which really wasn't very fast.

I sat down in front of the food, and I just couldn't hold back. I picked up my fork, and took my first bite.

Oh, this was heaven. Absolute heaven on earth. I couldn't understand how there could possibly be cinnamon rolls as good as this one out in the world. It was perfectly melted, and warm, but not too warm, with a thick icing layer on top that had started running down the sides. The core tasted like a mixture of cinnamon and maple syrup.

"Grace, where on earth did you get these?" I exclaimed in-between bites. "This is incredible!"

"Oh, there's a little bakery down the street that sells all kinds of things," she said. "I even got this really yummy-looking scone mix for us to make later!"

"That reminds me," I said. "What are we going to do today? I don't think Olivia's going to be ready to come out of the hospital for another few days. She looked pretty bad yesterday."

I had gone to see Olivia right before we left the hospital. She seemed alright, but there was a huge bandage around her stomach, and it looked really painful. She'd told me that it especially hurt whenever she breathed deeply or laughed.

"She should be out soon, though. And plus, the sooner she gets out, the sooner you can spend more time with Prussia!"

Before I could tell her to shut up, there was a knock at the door. Grace got up from her seat and opened it. There were Prussia, Taylor, and Hannah.

"Huh. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear," Grace said, grinning at me. I shot her a glare.

"What's up, you guys?" I asked as they filed into the room. "Where's Megan and America?"

"America said they were going to try to talk to Olivia again today," Prussia said.

"Hope they get farther than they did yesterday," Taylor mused.

At that point I stopped paying attention to what they were talking about and went back to my cinnamon roll. It was cold now. But it was still delicious.

Once I finished the cinnamon roll I stood up to try to maneuver to the sink, but Prussia saw me struggling and picked up the plate for me.

"Oh, thanks," I said. He gave me a little smirk.

"Just being awesome." As he walked away, Grace elbowed me in the side and smiled at me. I glared at her again. She was being way too obvious.

"So how long have you guys been up?" I asked the others. "We've only been up for about ten minutes."

"Taylor was up practically at the crack of dawn," complained Hannah from her perch on the windowsill. "She woke me up."

"Well if you hadn't stayed up until God knows when last night you wouldn't have minded!" Taylor replied. "And I was not up at the crack of dawn! Nine o'clock in the morning is not the crack of dawn!"

"Speaking of, what time is it, anyway?" Grace asked.

"Nearly eleven," Hannah responded, sounding a little grumpy. "My usual wake-up time."

"Oh, stop complaining," Taylor said. "It's not like nine is early."

"Well, when I woke up and saw this much fog outside the window, I assumed it was."

"Yeah, have you guys seen how foggy it is today?" I asked. "It's crazy. Worse than anything I've ever seen in Duluth."

"It's almost like we're just floating in the clouds," Grace added. "You can't even see the ground."

"I hope Megan and America can see where they're driving," Taylor said. "We can't take another potentially fatal injury at this point."

"I'm getting better, though," I said, gesturing to my leg. "When I put my weight on it, it doesn't hurt as much as it did yesterday."

"You should be careful, though," Prussia said, finally joining in our conversation. "You don't want to injure it again."

"I know, I know."

"Hey guys, I think I can actually see shapes moving through the fog now!" Hannah called from her seat on the windowsill. The four of us raced over to her -well, to be more precise, the others raced and I hobbled- and looked outside as well.

"I think I see a car, right there," Grace said, pointing to a barely noticeable shadow.

"Are you kidding? That is obviously a dog!" Taylor argued.

"No, it's a car! I can see the headlights!"

"Well I see a tail! Can't you see it wagging down there?"

"How are you missing the headlights?"

"You guys are being ridiculous," I said, trying to regain order. "It's obviously a motorcycle."

"A motorcycle?" Taylor laughed. "That's insane."

"You're one to talk!" Grace said. "You think it's a dog!"

It went on like that for five more minutes. You'd think they would act their age and move on, but no. They kept arguing like the little kids they really are at heart. Hannah and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

"Are they always like this?" Prussia asked, eying them warily.

"Yeah," I told him. "You get used to it."

"Whatever. It's still unawesome."

"Unawesome is not a word," Taylor said, finally pulling out of the argument.

"It is, too!"

"No, it's not! You say 'not awesome', not 'unawesome'!"

"Alright, let's not fight over this," I said, trying to stop this argument before it could start. Once Taylor got on a grammar tangent, she would go on about it forever. It could be a little annoying sometimes, but she was still my friend, and I still loved her, Grammar Nazi tendencies and all.

"You're right, Kaylee," she said, turning away. "It's not like anything I say would get through that thick skull of his."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Prussia asked. I just laughed.

"Whatever you want it to mean," Taylor said with an amused air. Then she went back to staring out of the window at the ground below. Prussia rolled his eyes at her and walked over to the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" I called to him.

"I'm going out to find some beer," he said. "I haven't had any of that awesome stuff in a while."

"Oh, well have fun!"

"I will," he said before opening the door and leaving the room.

The second it closed, Taylor and Grace turned to me, evil gleams in their eyes.

"What?" I asked. When they didn't respond, I asked again, louder. "_What?!" _

"Oh, nothing," Taylor said. But I saw the two of them exchange looks. I knew they were up to something. And I didn't really want to know what it was. I was even more worried when the two of them went over to the corner of the room and stood very close together, obviously hatching an evil scheme. Not really wanting to be around them, I went to go sit by Hannah on the windowsill.

She looked up when I sat down.

"Oh, hi Kaylee," she said.

"Hey, Hannah," I responded. "They're creating evil plans over there, and I feel like I want to know what they are, but for some reason I don't."

"Knowing those two, you probably don't want to know. Or get involved in it."

I laughed. "As long as they aren't plotting to murder me, I think I'll be okay."

She smiled at me. After a while we both went back to looking outside again. It was still pretty foggy, but I could definitely make out the different cars in the parking lot. And I thought I could see the golden arches of McDonald's not too far from here.

It was so mesmerizing to stare into the dissipating fog that I jumped a few inches in the air when I heard my phone ring.

* * *

**Who on earth could possibly be on the other end of the phone?**

**And how did Megan and America fare with Olivia today?**

**All will be revealed in the next chapter, which may or may not be out this weekend. Depends on how busy I am.**

**See you then!**


	19. Clouded Mind

**Ermahgerd you guys, I'm back.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia, or any of the characters associated with it. She does, however, own an England plushie and an America t-shirt.**

* * *

Hospitals are boring.

Seriously, all you can do when you're in the hospital is sit in bed and recover from your injury. You might be able to watch TV, if you've got a set, but you spend a lot of time just sitting around and waiting for a visitor. Kaylee got out yesterday, the lucky duck. She can go home now. Everyone can go home, except me.

But they won't. They told me themselves that they were going to stay here in Canada until I was better, and I could come home with them. It was nice to have visitors while I was recovering. Yesterday I had a long visit with Kaylee and Hannah. I was still upset with Megan for trying to pull that stupid prank on me.

Which brings me to a completely different point. That guy who claimed, not only to be my boyfriend, but also the personification of the United States of America. Naturally, I didn't believe him. Why should I? He gave me no reason to. But why did they keep up with it, when they knew I didn't fall for the joke? The others who visited me didn't say anything about it, so either they didn't know anything, or they just didn't want me to get upset again.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a news update on the TV, something about a wall of a building that had "THE AWESOME GILBERT WAS HERE" spray-painted onto it by someone. Investigators were still looking for the vandal, but the vandalism had appeared overnight, so they weren't hopeful. I just laughed. Who would be stupid enough to spray-paint their name on a wall? And didn't the news have anything better to report on in Canada?

I sat there, watching the late morning news for another few minutes. There weren't a lot of interesting stories being reported, except for the building vandalism. That was just hilarious.

It was a little after eleven when I heard my door open. I didn't turn around and face the opening. It was probably just a nurse coming in to check on me. So I continued to stare out the window, not like I could see much out there. Too much fog.

I only turned around when I heard whoever it was clear their throat. Rolling my eyes at nothing in particular, I turned around to see Megan and "America" standing there. Great. She was still trying to trick me. Well, it wasn't going to work. Maybe if I just ignored him, he would go away.

"Hi Megan!" I said, false cheer evident in my voice. She raised an eyebrow at me, obviously knowing something was up. I just smiled.

"Hi Olivia," she said, choosing her words carefully. "How are you feeling today?"

"Still like crap," I said, gesturing to my stomach. "But definitely not as bad as I did the other day." Megan came forward and sat down on the chair next to me.

"Remembered anything else?"

"Not really," I said. "All I really remember is how foggy it was outside the day we drove into Duluth, kind of like it is today." I looked outside again. "Scratch that, it's _much _foggier outside today."

"I know," she said, getting up and walking over to the window. "We could barely see on the drive up here. I had to keep getting out and wiping off all the windows. We probably could have gotten here about ten minutes faster if it wasn't for all this damn fog!" She shouted that last part to the window as if the fog could hear. I could barely stifle my laugh.

"Anyway," she said, turning back to me, "You should really work on getting your memory back so you can remember America and we can go home."

My eyes narrowed at that sentence. "I can't believe you're still trying to get me to believe you!" I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "Can't you just accept that your stupid joke didn't work?"

"It's not a joke!" she said. "Why else would I be trying so hard? I know how far to take a joke, Olivia, and this is not a joke! Why can't you just believe us?"

"You're asking me to believe something that's completely insane!" I said, my voice rising. "I've heard some pretty farfetched things in my life before, but this is just one step too far off the edge for me."

"What, so you think I'm crazy now, huh?" she snapped, turning to face the outside window. I felt a cold wave a guilt wash over me. I hated fighting with Megan. She was my oldest friend, since the first grade, and every time we fought I felt like we were going to split apart forever. Of course, we never did, but that didn't mean I wasn't afraid.

"Megan, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" I trailed off as she turned around and started walking to the door. Just before she opened it, she turned around and said, "America, you had better fix Olivia's memory. Because I really can't take this anymore." And then she left, leaving me alone with him.

The door closed and the room was silent. Guilt was still hanging in the air, thick as the fog outside the window. I bit my lip and turned to face the window, crossing my arms.

"Olivia."

I didn't give any indication that I'd heard him. I kept looking outside, trying to distract myself by watching the very gradual lifting of the fog.

"Olivia, please just talk to me," he said, a pleading tone in his voice. My stomach churned a little at the sound. That almost made me want to believe everything Megan was saying. But that would go against everything I knew about the world, and fact vs. fiction. Anime characters didn't just appear in your life out of nowhere.

He softly placed a hand on my shoulder, as if to comfort me. I didn't throw it off; I was too deep in my own thoughts. The fog outside was thinner than it had been all morning, and I could see shapes swirling around in the fog. It kind of reminded me of the beach that day, when we had a rock-skipping competition…

I gasped aloud, realizing what I had just thought about. A rock-skipping competition? I hadn't remembered this before!

"What's wrong?" came the voice from behind me.

"Be quiet!" I told him, turning around. "I-I think I'm remembering something!"

He nodded, and backed up a few steps. I looked at him carefully, and my eyes flickered up to rest on his for a moment. When they met, I felt a surge of memories, as clear as if they had only happened a moment ago.

I could remember that day on the beach perfectly now, every detail. He was there, my friends and I showed him Hetalia. The next really clear memory I had was at a McDonald's, where he asked me out on a date. I could almost taste the bacon in my mouth as I remembered him asking me out on date. And then the date itself…

Every moment, every second played in my head. The drive out to the grassy field, the chilled hamburgers, that delicious apple pie, and what he'd told me in secret, as we relaxed on the picnic blanket.

He'd told me he was America. Just like he had two days ago. And he'd proved it to me. I could remember the visions he had showed me. I remembered that first kiss.

It hit me like a speeding bullet at that moment. He was telling the truth. Megan had been telling the truth. This was America standing in front of me. I knew it was.

He was surprised when I leaned forward to give him a tight hug. But he didn't hesitate long before gingerly wrapping his arms around me as well, being careful to avoid my wound. I closed my eyes and held on tighter, as I felt the rest of my memories returning.

We broke apart after what felt like a few seconds, but it was much longer than that. He smiled at me, saying, "It's good to have you back, Olivia."

I smiled back and said, "It's great to be back, America."

Before either of us could say or do anything else, the door to the room burst open, and in walked Megan, grinning ear to ear.

"So I see you got your memories back."

"Yeah," I said, nearly breathless with happiness. Then I remembered what happened right before she left the room. "Megan, about earlier, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for not believing you. You too, America," I said to him.

"It's not your fault," he reassured me, grabbing my hand. "You said it yourself, it's kind of hard to believe."

"But I didn't even think for a second that you were telling the truth!"

"Olivia," he said, his voice gentle, "it's okay. Don't worry about it anymore. You remembered, and that's all that matters." And he pulled me into another embrace.

This one really did last only a few seconds, because Megan loudly cleared her throat, causing America to pull away.

"I'm really happy for you guys and all," she said. "But remember America, if you so much as think about hurting her, I won't think twice before duct taping you to the ceiling again. Hannah would be more than happy to help."

He looked genuinely scared at that. "Duct taped to the ceiling?" I asked her.

She smiled at me. "Oh, just something that happened at our impromptu rescue meeting," she said, an evil glimmer in her eyes.

I decided that I really didn't want to know.

After a few minutes, Megan pulled out her phone and turned around, her back to us.

"What are you doing?" I called.

"Telling the others," she said, not looking up at us. "Just carry on with what you were doing."

She called them, told them to get there right away, and hung up.

"Why didn't you tell them why?" I asked.

"Because I wanted to freak them out!" Megan said. "It's funny!"

I rolled my eyes at her. She could be so insensitive sometimes. "What are we going to do until the others get here?"

"We could watch TV!" America said, grabbing the remote and changing the channel rom the news. I saw short snippets of different sitcoms and reality shows before he stopped on some footage of a lion attacking a gazelle on Animal Planet.

"Hey! Turn that off!" Megan cried, turning away from the TV.

"What?! Why?!" America said, not even looking away from the violent gore on the screen.

"I don't know if I ever told you this, but I'm a vegetarian. I haven't had meat in years, and looking at stuff like that," she gestured to the TV, "makes me feel sick. So could you please turn that off?"

"Oh…yeah, sure," America said as he pressed the power button on the remote. "Wait, you're a vegetarian? So you don't eat hamburgers, like, ever?"

"Nope. Never," she said. "Even before I became a vegetarian, I always liked veggie burgers better."

"What?!" he cried, looking between Megan and I. "Doesn't anyone I know like hamburgers?"

As he said that, I heard a frantic knock at the door. Megan turned towards the sound and grinned evilly.

"That must be the others," she said quietly, motioning for us to be quiet as well. "Pretend you still can't remember anything!"

"Why?" I mouthed back, careful to keep my voice down. "What's the point?"

"It's going to be funny!"

I looked at America and both of us rolled our eyes. But we followed Megan's plan anyway. America put on a fake sullen expression (which I could see through like glass) and went to the corner, while I settled back down on the bed. Megan looked at us one more time before she opened the door.

The four girls were standing there, all looking worriedly at me, and then at America in the corner. I felt guilty for misleading them, but then Megan looked at me sternly, forbidding me in that one look to say anything. Taylor looked at me after that and said, "Hey Olivia, is something wrong? Megan called us, saying to come here right away."

I thought to myself for a moment before deciding to screw Megan's joke idea. It was stupid, and it wasn't fair to my friends. "Well, I would have been great if I could have been alone with America for a little longer, but _no._ Megan just _had_ to come in and ruin everything."

Everything after that happened at the same time. Megan turned towards me and shot me a look of frustration and anger for ruining her evil plan. America gave me a grin and a wink, to which I smiled back. And the rest of my friends just stood there, from shock I suppose.

I counted, it took a total of ten seconds for my words to sink in, during which time America had come to sit next to me on the bed again, and Megan had walked farther away from us. Then it finally hit them.

Grace came to me first, followed shortly by Taylor. Hannah was never one for hugs, and Kaylee was on crutches. Before I could even blink, I was wrapped up in a giant hug by two of my best friends, and it felt great. Until the hit my wound.

"Ow," I said. Immediately America was there, shooing the others away from me.

"America," I said, "They can hug me. It's okay."

"But I don't want you to get hurt!" he said, holding my hand. I could hear Taylor and Kaylee aww-ing in the background. I turned to them and shot them a look of annoyance, before turning back to America.

"It's just one hug, America. That's not going to kill me."

"I just want to make sure you're safe! That's my job as the hero, after all!" He flashed me another smile, more sincere than I'd seen in a while. I rolled my eyes at him and lightly punched his shoulder.

"I know, I know." Then I remembered something from earlier today, and turned to the others. "I saw something on the news earlier that a wall somewhere had the words 'THE AWESOME GILBERT WAS HERE' spray-painted on it. Does Prussia know anything about that?"

The color visibly drained from Kaylee's face, and Taylor doubled over with laughter. "He…actually…did it!" she said between laughs. "I didn't think he had the balls to!"

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Kaylee said, turning towards Taylor.

"Oh," she said, still chuckling a little bit. "Well, after you and Grace left to go to bed last night, the rest of us started playing Truth or Dare in America and Prussia's room. I dared Prussia to do that. He said he would, but when he didn't bring back any evidence, I didn't believe him!"

"Speaking of, where is Prussia?" America asked, looking around the room.

"The last time I checked, he went out to buy some beer," Taylor said. "I dared him to abstain from drinking any for a whole week, but he chickened out."

"Dude, of course he did!" America grinned. "The guy practically lives on the stuff!"

And so we broke into easy conversation just like that. It was amazing how much I had remembered in less than an hour. There was still a little bit that was fuzzy, but I knew it would all return in time.

Now, if only I could get out of the damn hospital…

* * *

**America, you are so adorable. I just want to hug you right now.**

**By the way, next chapter will probably be my favorite one to write. That's all I'll say for now.**

**Bonsoir (or bonjour, you know, whatever time it is where you are)!**


	20. The Good, the Bad, and the Terrified

**I am 5000% done with school. Too much homework, not enough free time on the weekends to write. I realize it has been four weeks, probably my longest without an update. And I am sorry. Really, truly sorry. **

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia or Doctor Who.**

* * *

"Aww, come on! You know coffee is so much better than tea!"

"Coffee is disgusting. Tea actually has a good flavor."

"But Olivia!"

I rolled my eyes as I continued to watch my teapot. When America had seen it, he tried to convince me that tea was terrible and coffee was supreme. Obviously, he failed.

"England wants tea, too. If you want coffee, make it yourself. I don't want it, so I'm not making it."

"I'll make it," came a voice from outside the kitchen. I turned around to see Megan making her way towards us.

"No way, dude!" America said, looking a little scared. "I don't trust you to make my coffee! You'll probably poison it or something."

"Wouldn't coffee by itself poison you? I still don't understand how you enjoy that foul drink, America," England said, coming out of the bathroom.

"Thank you for agreeing with me, England. At least someone around here has good taste."

"Don't make me pour your boiling water on you," Megan said, gesturing to the teapot, which now had steam pouring out of it.

"Ah! The tea!" England and I screamed in unison. I quickly turned off the heat while England grabbed a couple of teacups from the cupboard.

"Haha, you guys can't cook!" America teased. I shot him a death glare.

"Shut it, you."

England set the teacups down and placed a bag of Earl Grey in each one. I poured the hot water over each cup, adding copious amounts of sugar to mine.

"You are going to get a cavity," Megan deadpanned.

"I've been doing this for over five years now, and I haven't got one once."

"She's right, you know," England said. "Just because you haven't got a cavity before doesn't mean you won't now."

I couldn't answer that, so I just stuck my tongue out at him and started to power up the X-Box. I had to get ready for the party, didn't I?

See, a couple days after we got back from Canada, Kaylee suggested we get together with a few of the nations to watch movies on Netflix. Today was the day we had set, and now all we had to do was wait for the others to show up.

"Good afternoon, peasants," came a voice that was unmistakably Kaylee's. Was that a slight British accent I heard? I turned to the door, and saw that she had let herself into my house, followed closely by Prussia and Taylor.

"I'm awesome!" Prussia added.

"No you're not dude, don't lie!" America called back. Cue the facepalm.

"Kaylee, you can't just let yourself into my house without my permission!" I cried, waving my teacup around in the air, but careful not to spill any of it. Tea is a precious thing, after all.

"Of course I can! We're friends, aren't we?" She turned to give Taylor a high five.

We had just barely settled when my door opened _again, _this time with Grace followed closely by Germany and Italy.

"Do you people have any respect for closed doors?" I snarled.

"No. No they do not," Megan said. "Why would you think they would?"

I just shook my head and went back to my tea. In the corner of my eye I could see Prussia ransacking my fridge, presumably for beer. I wasn't going to question it.

"So, when are we gonna start the show?" America asked, almost shocking me into dropping my teacup. I shot him a glare and he recoiled. Smart man.

"When the others get here." I said.

The ten of us that were there began to gather around the television, which was now set on Netflix. There were only two couches in the room, and so only six of us could sit on them. The rest had to sit on the floor. America quickly snagged the end of one of the couches, with England on the other side and I in the middle. Taylor, Kaylee and Prussia sat on the other one, leaving Megan, Grace, Germany, and Italy on the floor. Italy was trying to cuddle with Germany, but to no avail. Grace wouldn't dare to go near Megan.

We were almost completely settled in when my door opened for the third time, with Hannah and Russia walking in.

"Oh, that is IT!" I shouted, standing up to face the two of them. "I am so done with this! My house is not a place where people can just come and go as they please! When someone's door is closed, the polite thing is to knock and wait for them to say, "come in"! Not to barge in without a single thought!"

I stopped yelling and turned back to face America, who looked like he was trying to stop himself from laughing.

"_What?"_

"You sound j-just l-like England!" he said, shaking with laughter.

"I do not!"

"Do too!"

"I hate you," I said, turning away in mock anger.

"What? No!" America cried, hugging me around the middle. Tightly.

"Agh! America, get off me! You're crushing me!"

"No!"

I tried to struggle free, but I only succeeded in spinning around to face him. He smirked at me, and I rolled my eyes and said to him, once again, "Get off."

"Kiss me, and I will."

I closed my eyes in annoyance and let out a breath. "Fine." I gave him a quick kiss, ignoring the wolf-whistles from Taylor and Prussia. Thank God France wasn't here too.

America released me and I plopped down on the couch, grabbing the X-Box controller. Oh, he was _so _going to pay for that.

"What are we watching then, Olivia?" England asked, trying to change the subject. I looked at him and smiled evilly.

"Doctor Who."

He returned the smile. "I think we should watch The Empty Child."

"YES!" came a shout from the other side of the room. I turned to see Hannah grinning widely. _Someone _was happy.

"Wait, what's The Empty Child?" America asked, clearly confused. England and I shared another evil smile.

"Oh, only one of the scariest Doctor Who episodes known to the universe," I said. America visibly gulped.

"O-oh. Great," he said unenthusiastically. I smirked and pressed the play button on the controller, watching as the episode loaded.

When the child first appeared on the screen, America jumped and recoiled back into the couch a little bit. That was expected. What wasn't expected was that when it appeared for the second time, America grabbed onto me again, hiding his face in my shoulder and shaking like a leaf.

"Come on git, you can't be that scared," England said, rolling his eyes. I looked over to the others and saw both Taylor and Kaylee cowering behind Megan, Prussia sitting on the couch by himself looking bored, Grace and Italy hiding behind Germany, and Hannah and Russia giving the screen their full attention.

"I like the way their faces look when they morph into gas masks!" Russia said. "They look so scared!"

"I know! Isn't it great?" Hannah added.

"You guys are crazy," Kaylee said. "This is freaking terrifying!"

Once the episode was over, America visibly relaxed for about five seconds until he realized that I had started another episode, and then proceeded to bury his face in my shoulder again. I wrapped my arm around him and held him closer in a comforting way, feeling just a little bit guilty for putting him through this (even though he really shouldn't have had a fear of scary movies in the first place. They weren't that scary).

"Could we please turn this off, or at least watch something else?" Taylor said. "I don't think America or Kaylee can take much more of this."

"Hey! What about you?" Kaylee protested. "You're hiding behind Megan, too!"

"So? Doesn't mean I'm as scared."

Their argument continued for the entirety of the episode. Once it was over, I threw the controller at Taylor's head, but I missed and hit Megan instead.

"Uh-oh," Grace said. I seconded that motion. Megan slowly stood up and turned around. I was forcibly reminded of the time she had chased me around my house after I had blasted Miley Cyrus to wake her up that one time…Was that really a whole month ago?

Either way, I stood up rather quickly, shaking America out of his catatonic state.

"Megan," I began, trying to ward off the coming storm.

"You hit me," she said simply, walking closer.

"I know, and I'm sorry."

"You _hit _me."

"Run, Olivia! RUN!" Grace yelled. I was only too happy to listen to her.

As I started running, America called to me, "I'll hold her off!" But I didn't even chance a single look behind me before I was outside and sprinting down the street. Not looking where I was going, I didn't see the man standing in front of me, thus barreling him down.

"OOF!" I shouted as I landed on top of him. I wasn't sure who it was until I heard his signature laugh.

"Ohonhonhonhon!"

"France!" I shouted, scrambling off of him. "What the hell are _you _doing here? No one invited you!"

"Well, no," he said matter-of-factly. "I invited myself."

I rolled my eyes at him and started to walk back towards my house when France grabbed my arm. I turned to him, raising an eyebrow.

"What?"

"That wasn't the reason I came out here," France said, his tone suddenly more serious than I had ever heard him before. My heart-beat quickened by several beats.

"Then what was? You know, my house is full of people that will notice I'm gone. If I don't come back-"

"No no, you misunderstand," France said quickly. "You don't have to go anywhere. We came to you."

"_We?_"

"Yeah," came another voice from the shadows. I whipped my head around to the noise, and I got a definite feeling of déjà vu as Canada stepped into the light from the streetlamp.

"Canada. What are you doing here?" I asked, trying to keep the utter surprise out of my voice.

"Hi Olivia," he said, unsmiling. "You probably don't believe me, but I came here to say sorry."

"And how do I know you're not just going to kidnap me again, this time with France's help?"

Canada took a deep breath and sighed, looking down at his feet and digging his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. "If I wanted to do that, it would have already happened. I really am here to say sorry."

"And Canada has been much better," France added. "He has been taking some medication and he's gone to several therapy sessions. He shouldn't snap again."

I nodded, looking back at Canada again. He certainly seemed more like his normal quiet self. But he was definitely not the same.

"I really am sorry, Olivia," he said. "It's okay if you don't forgive me right away."

"OLIVIA! WHERE ARE YOU?"

"That's America." I turned around and saw his figure far in the distance. "I…should go."

"Yeah," Canada said. "America wouldn't be too pleased to see me right now."

"Mmhmm. Oh, and Canada?"

"Hmm?"

"I do forgive you," I said. "Thank you for apologizing to me face to face."

"You're welcome".

And with that, France and Canada walked back he way they had come from, just in time for America to find me.

"God Olivia, you scared me! You were gone for such a long time, I thought-"

"I know, and I'm sorry," I said. "I just got a little distracted and lost track of time."

"Okay," he said. "Come on, it's cold out here and Grace was making hot chocolate when I left."

"Chocolate?" I exclaimed, whipping my head back and forth, causing America to laugh. "Where?"

"It's back at the house. Race you there!"

And the two of us were off, running to the house like our lives depended on it. I looked back into the dark to see if I could spot Canada or France, but all I saw was the empty street, the cool night wind blowing through the trees.

* * *

**Yeah, the last part of the chapter came to me as I was writing this about half an hour ago. I felt that it was appropriate to check up on how Canada was doing. Sorry if he seems overly OOC. **

**If the next update takes four weeks again, you all have permission to come to my house with pitchforks and demand my writing.**

**I haven't got a lot of reviews lately, so any reviews would be greatly appreciated.**

**That's all for this update. See you next time.**


	21. Apprehensive

**It seems like every time I try to promise a deadline, it ends up not happening. What's it been, faithful readers? Two months? I am so sorry. I really meant to get back to this, I did. But stuff happens sometimes. For one thing, my teachers decided to pile on the homework. And then I got a really bad writer's block. Worse than anything I've ever had before. So I had to start this chapter over from scratch and scrap a lot of ideas I had.**

**Which brings me to another point. This story is going to end very soon. It's been an amazing experience writing it, but I think that it's time for it to end. There will probably be another chapter after this, followed by an epilogue of some sort. I've finally figured out how to end this!**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia.**

* * *

It's funny, how fast the time goes when you're enjoying it. It felt like only a week had passed, but no, almost two months had gone by, and it was nearing the end of summer. America had to leave a few times to attend more meeting down in Minneapolis, but he was only gone for three days at most. Whenever he was gone, the girls and I would hang out, maybe go see a movie or two. I also spent a lot of that time visiting my relatives that lived around Duluth. I had an abnormally large family. Sometimes I wasn't sure I knew all my cousin's names.

When America was here, the two of us would do a lot of things together. I showed him around Duluth some more, driving down to my old high school, taking him to the zoo. He really liked the bald eagles. We spent one afternoon out on my uncle Dan's boat, fishing in Lake Superior. We went out to dinner a few times, and I made sure I showed him all my favorite restaurants. My parents had met him by now and seemed to like him (although he went by Alfred around them).

Sometimes, however, America would show _me _something, which was what he did today.

I was spreading jelly on my morning toast when the doorbell began ringing about a million times a second. I rolled my eyes, thankful my parents were already out of the house, and went to answer the door. America was standing there, holding a football.

"Surprise!" he said. "I'm gonna teach you how to throw a football today!"

I looked down at the football in his hands, my stomach twisting uncomfortably. I wasn't very good at football. Hell, I barely understood it. My only experience with the game was when my cousin from Minneapolis decided to teach me how to play, the year I turned fourteen. Any attempt that was made at teaching me ended up with a ball in my face. Or his face. Or…other places. I'd much rather stick with hockey, thank you very much.

"What is it?" he asked, obviously not expecting my lack of enthusiasm.

"Huh?" My head jerked back up from the football. "Oh, nothing, it's just that I've never been very good at football. My cousin tried to teach me once and it ended very badly."

"Well, I'm sure you'll do awesome if I teach you!" He looked so excited. I sighed, and then resigned myself to an afternoon of pain, tears, and frustration.

"Okay, I'll do it."

* * *

"Okay, first you put your fingers here, see?" America said. We were out at the park that wasn't too far from my house. There weren't any other people around, so no danger of me hitting anyone in the face. Or any other sensitive areas.

"I still don't think this is a good idea."

"Oh, you'll be fine!" And with that he stepped away from me, satisfied with the way I was holding the ball. He walked down about fifteen feet and stopped, turning to face me. "Okay, now you throw it, and I catch it, okay?"

I nodded, still not completely sure this was such a good idea. But I was determined to get this right. I brought the ball back past my shoulder; like I saw the football players do it on the TV. I used my left arm to aim, and threw the ball forward, watching it soar towards America…

"Ow!"

I cringed. Instead of soaring into his hand, like I'd wanted it to, the ball ended up soaring straight into his crotch. "Agh! Sorry, America! Are you okay?"

He looked at me, obviously trying for a grin, but because of the pain it came out more like a grimace. "Yeah, I'm fine." And with that he promptly fell over, clutching his crotch in pain.

I ran over to him and kneeled next to him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." He started to get up, but ended up leaning on me for support. "Nope, never mind."

"Do you want me help you get back to my house?" I asked.

"Nah, I think I'll be fine in a few minutes if I just sit here," he said. "Nations heal fast, y'know."

I nodded, and sat down on the grass next to him. It was a pretty nice day, just a few wispy clouds in the sky, the sun bright and warm. That was one of the things I didn't like about Washington. Half the time it was raining, the other half there were clouds covering the sun. Apparently it got pretty warm during the summer, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out.

"Hey, Olivia?"

"Yeah?"

"You're going back to Washington soon, aren't you?" I thought about that for a minute. It was the start of September, and Megan and I had originally planned on flying back to Washington about a week before term started on September 20th. Which meant I had about two weeks left before we had to leave.

"Megan and I have plane tickets for the thirteenth," I said. "We have to get back and settle into our dorm rooms."

"So that leaves two weeks."

"Why are you asking me?" I asked him.

"I just wanted to know how much time we had left to spend together," he said. I turned to face him. He looked upset.

"America, you knew I couldn't stay here forever," I said. "And don't you have other responsibilities as a nation? Aren't the meetings moving to a different country soon? You're going to have to leave, too."

He looked down at his feet. "I know," he said sadly. "And it really isn't fair to the other countries to keep having the meetings in Minnesota. But, you know, I kind of wanted to get a break."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Before I met you and the other girls, at the beach, I was pretty upset. The other guys, they always made fun of me. They always thought my ideas were stupid. And I got really tired of that. So I headed up north, where I found that beach, and then you guys. And I felt different, you know. Like I was important when I was with you."

I smiled sadly. I had no idea he felt that way. "America, listen to me. You _are_ important. You are the superpower of the entire world! And if those other nations don't see that, then to hell with them! But _I_ see it. I _know_ you're important. And that's why you have to go back to your duties as a nation. Believe it or not, everyone needs you."

He looked at me and smiled. "Yeah, you're right. I _am _important to the rest of the world. And if England tries to tell me I'm not ever again, I'm gonna steal all his tea and dump it in the harbor again!"

I laughed. "So, you were there, the night of the Boston Tea Party?"

"There? Of course I was there! I had to be, if we were dumping England's tea into the harbor!"

"What was it like?"

He got a huge grin on his face and started gesturing with his hands as he talked. "There were a whole bunch of us gathered together, and we got onto the ships, and then we just dumped all the tea we could get our hands on. I must have dumped like, five chests. And then we watched the empty chests bobbing up and down in the water, and I just got this wild feeling in my heart, like there was nothing I couldn't do."

"What did England do when he found out?"

"Can I tell you a secret? He still doesn't know I was there! He was away in England when it happened, and I never told him I was there."

My eyes widened. "What do you think he'd do if he found out now?"

"I don't know, but I don't really want to find out."

I laughed. "Yeah, I bet England can get pretty scary when he's angry. Former pirate, and all."

"You have no idea."

We spent the rest of the afternoon with America telling me even more stories from his history, the football sitting on the ground, left untouched.

* * *

"So. I heard you and America went out on a little date today."

"And is that your business, Megan?" I asked. She and I were collapsed on my couch, scrolling through Netflix. "Because, the last time I checked, it really wasn't."

"It's always my business," Megan said as she scrolled past the Romance genre. "I have to make sure he's treating you okay."

"You don't need to do that. Everything is fine. And, excuse me, how did you know we were on a date, anyway?"

She looked at me sheepishly. "I may have followed you."

"Megan," I said in an annoyed tone.

"Hey, I was coming over here anyway. Then I saw you two leave through the front door, and I decided to follow you. Nice throw, by the way. He totally deserved it."

I rolled my eyes. "How long were you there?"

"I left when you two were talking. I couldn't hear anything and I got bored. What _were _you talking about, anyway?"

"America wanted to know when we were leaving for Washington."

"Oh." She turned to me, understanding on her face. "There's only a few weeks left, aren't there?"

"Two."

"That's rough." She leaned back into the couch. "So, what did he say?"

"Well, first he was sad, but then I helped him figure out that he needs to get back to work as a nation, too. Did you know that the other countries were making fun of him and his ideas?"

"Honestly, I'm not all that surprised," she said. "I mean, they are kind of stupid."

I hit her lightly. "That isn't nice."

"I'm not a very nice person. Haven't you noticed?" I rolled my eyes at her. "But I'm serious, Olivia. What are you going to do when you have to leave?"

"I don't know," I said. "I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

* * *

**This chapter felt good, at least the last half. And I finally tied a lot of things together!**

**So, as I said, this story is ending soon, so before I lose my chance, I want to thank all of you for reading my story, and sticking through with it to the end. I want to thank especially all of you that reviewed, and all of you that favorited and followed this story. It really makes a girl feel proud, you know?**

**Anyway, see you in the next update!**


	22. Goodbye

**Oh my god you guys *insert apology here***

**Why can I never do anything right? Gahhhhhhhhhh**

**Anyway, onto the story.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia.**

* * *

All good things must come to an end, as they say. The leaves on the maple trees were turning red and orange, and there was a definite chill in the air. The school busses were making their daily rounds, picking kids up for school. It was time for Megan and I to return to Washington.

The others had already left the week before, and now it was just us and Kaylee. But she was already back, so we only got to see her a few times a week. But looking at her workload didn't make me excited to get back to school. Not to mention I'd have to say goodbye to America.

We'd talked about it a few more times, and we decided that it would be better to try a long-distance sort of thing. That way I could focus on my classes, and he could focus on doing his job and being a nation. We would meet up again in Minnesota for every break, and maybe a few extra times besides. But I still didn't want to leave.

On the day we left, it was pretty cold. The temperature had dropped down to about fifty degrees, and the kids were wearing coats as they walked to the bus stop. But inside my house, there was a hurricane raging.

"Mom! Where did I put my Kindle?" I called down the stairs, before running back to my room and stuffing my suitcase. I was in a panic. Megan was downstairs already, and her presence wasn't helping my panic attack. I was ninety-nine percent sure we were going to miss our plane.

"Olivia! Forget the Kindle!" Megan called up the stairs. "Your mom can mail it to you later! We're going to be late!"

"I know, I know!" As I whipped around my room one last time, I saw the Kindle poking out from under my bed. Without stopping to think, I zipped it into my carry-on bag and barreled downstairs to where Megan was waiting with her arms crossed.

"You really need to get yourself together when you're packing up," Megan said.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's just go."

"Oh yeah," Megan said, looking down at her feet. "About that…"

"Megan," I started, my hands going to my hips. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" she defended. I gave her a glare. "Okay, remember yesterday, when I needed to borrow your car?"

"Yeah?" I nodded. Megan rode her bike to my house yesterday and told me she needed to borrow my car so she could buy groceries for her parents. They'd taken the family car up to Hawks Ridge for the day. I keep telling her she should just buy her own car, but she says it isn't necessary as long as I've got one and she can just mooch off of me.

"Well, I kind of forgot to fill it back up with gas, and it's got about a quarter of a gallon left."

"Megan!" I yelled. There was no way we were making it to the nearest gas station on that much gas. And it wasn't like my car got very good gas mileage either. "What are we supposed to do now? Mom's not going to let us take her car, plus mine's blocking it in the driveway! We are _so _going to miss our plane."

"Actually, we're not," Megan said. "I thought ahead and called America. He's taking us to the airport. It'll give you two a chance to say your mushy goodbyes, won't it?"

Wow. In all the rush of the morning, I'd completely forgotten about America. How could I do that? We'd talked just last night, and I'd planned on at least calling him this morning. Of course, that was assuming that packing would only take an hour. But I should've learned something from all the trips my family went on when I was younger. Packing _never _took only an hour.

"When did he say he'd be here?" I asked, looking out the window. "His hotel's not too far away, is it?"

"I called him about fifteen minutes ago," Megan said. "He should be here any second."

And in fact, only two minutes later, the doorbell rang. Megan and I scrambled up off the couch, grabbed our bags, and opened the front door, where America was standing there, waiting for us.

"Somebody need a ride?" he said with a smirk. But in his eyes, I could see that he looked a little sad. I understood why. I was sad, too. But it wouldn't be the final goodbye, not a chance. And it was only a few months until Christmas, right? We'd be seeing each other soon enough.

"No, we ordered pizza," Megan said dryly. "Of course we need a ride! Now let's go, before we miss our flight."

* * *

On the way to the airport, I sat in the front of the car, next to America. Megan was sitting in the back. Luckily for me, I managed to snag a decent view of Duluth as we left the city, the air not nearly as clogged with fog as the day we arrived. I felt a sense of sadness when I could no longer see the buildings, so I turned around to face the front instead, looking ahead to the road in front of me.

None of us talked much, but then again, it wasn't the kind of drive that sparked much conversation. And what would we say, anyway? We were prolonging the inevitable goodbye as it was.

While we were on the road, I noticed the sky fill up with clouds that started out as white, but grew steadily darker until they were a dark grey. The windshield was soon peppered with small drops that slowly turned to even larger drops of rain. Before I knew it we were in the middle of a downpour, the worst rainfall I'd seen since Megan and I left Seattle.

It was hard to discern shapes from each other out the window, but I eventually noticed the landscape change from countryside to suburb and finally to city. The airport-and the final goodbye-wasn't far away now.

And so it finally came. We pulled up to the baggage claim not even ten minutes later. America parked the car and helped the two of us get our luggage out of the back, but soon we were all standing on the curb with nothing else to prolong our time together.

Megan headed inside so she could check our bags and save me a spot in the security line, so it was just America and I outside. We embraced; I buried my head in his chest.

"Have fun in college," he said. "Make sure you get As in all your classes, okay? Promise?"

"Promise," I said. "And, would you keep an eye on England for me? Make sure he doesn't burn down an entire country, alright?"

He laughed, and I joined in, the sound almost unnatural to my ears. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I knew it was Megan, telling me to get a move on.

America heard it too, and he smiled sadly at me. "You gotta go, huh?"

"Yeah."

He gave me another hug, and said, "Bye. I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too. But don't forget, it's only a few months until Christmas. It'll fly by in an instant."

* * *

The plane ride home was as silent as the ride to the airport. Megan ended up falling asleep halfway through it, and I didn't blame her. I was tired, too. Not just from staying up late packing, but from the entire summer in general. Everything we learned, everyone we met, all the memories we made. It was hard to believe any of it really happened.

We didn't talk until we were in our dorm, waiting for the other college students to arrive. I was looking out the window, and Megan brought me a mug of hot chocolate. She sat next to me, and said, "You miss him."

I nodded, taking a sip of the hot chocolate.

"You know, I actually miss him too. All of them actually."

"Yeah," I said. "You know, looking back on it, it's hard to believe that any of it actually happened. Like it was all just a dream, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow with you yelling at me to get ready to leave for the airport.

"But it did happen," Megan said, poking my stomach. "And you've got the scar to prove it."

I laughed a little bit. "I do, don't I? Well, at least there's one thing about this summer that'll never fade."

"Like you'll ever let yourself forget any of it," Megan said. "None of us will. And if I know you, I know you'll be seeing America every time you possibly can."

I smiled. "You know me way too well."

She rolled her eyes. "Would I be your best friend if I didn't?"

We sat and talked about the past summer for a few more minutes until some of our dorm mates walked in. I recognized them from last year.

"Hey Olivia, Megan," a girl named Jaimie said. "How was your summer?"

Megan and I looked at each other and smiled. I replied, "Oh, you know, the usual. Went back to Minnesota to see our old friends, just kind of hung out for a while."

"Oh, that's cool," Jaimie said. "I just went back home, too. Let me tell you, I did _not _miss the Seattle rain when I was back in Kentucky."

The three of us laughed together, and just like that, life seemed back to normal. But in the back of my brain, I knew that my life would never be the same again.

* * *

**Only the epilogue is left, you guys.**

**One more chapter until this is done.**

**I just... I want to thank you all so much for everything. You made my first fic on so successful, and I can't thank you enough. This fic could have gone so many different ways, maybe even ending up discontinued, but you guys pushed me through that and made me work to make this fic the best it could be. **

**I love each and every one of you guys.**

**See you at the final chapter.**


	23. Epilogue

**So this is it. The end. A big end for me. The end of my first public story. Jeez this is difficult for me. I mean, I want to end it, but I also don't, so it's just...conflicting. Gah. Okay. Here goes.**

**Disclaimer: Tealgirl713 does not own Hetalia.**

* * *

I don't think I've ever seen anything as beautiful as a Minnesota Christmas. It snows every single year, and the snow falls all the way up to your knees, sometimes even higher. When I was younger, my friends and I used to go out to our local park to build forts and have a snowball fight, which turned more into a snowball war. It wasn't over till the other team surrendered, and then we'd all go to someone's house for hot chocolate and microwave smores.

Just thinking of the past made a smile light up my face as I danced around my house, making sure all the decorations were out and the house was clean. Megan was doing the same thing in the other room.

Much like our other party in the summer, I'd invited a whole bunch of the nations over, along with my friends. Now I was just waiting for them to arrive, this time with the door firmly locked.

By the time the next hour had passed, everyone had arrived. Italy seemed especially bouncy today; maybe it was the snow outside. I could tell he was just itching to go out there and play in it. And I was a good host, so I made an announcement to the group.

"Okay guys, since everyone's here and it'll be light outside for at least another two hours, why don't we have a snowball fight?"

What followed after my declaration can only be described as organized chaos. America and Italy both rushed outside and I could see out the window that both of them were building little walls on opposite sides of my yard. Germany grudgingly followed Italy to assist him, and Japan joined the two of them. At the same time, Russia and England ran to the other side of the yard to help America build his fort up to par.

The other girls and I split up between the two groups, Megan, Hannah and I on America's side, Grace, Taylor and Kaylee on Italy's side. Only Prussia was left, and by the smirk on his face, I could see what he had in mind.

Ten minutes later, the forts were up and everyone was forming snowballs. My side was all ready to toss one over when all of a sudden, a flying ball of white shot out of nowhere and hit me in the face. I wiped the snow out of my eyes and peered across the lawn, where Taylor was laughing her head off. Narrowing my eyes, I picked up a snowball and threw it at her…

…only to have it miss her by a few inches and hit Germany square on instead. I immediately ducked down and hid behind Hannah, scared of what Germany might do.

It soon turned out I didn't have to worry about Germany, he was still too busy trying to show Italy how to form a proper snowball. But Japan and the others carried on the fight valiantly. Of course, they were no match for America when it came to throwing a snowball. And Russia was able to fill up his pipe with snow and send it shooting across the yard, causing damage to multiple enemies.

However, our reign as champions soon came to a close. In the blink of an eye, the entire other side picked up snowballs and threw them all at us, catching all six of us in the face. The force from the one that hit me was so great that I fell backwards and landed in the snow.

Our team snapped back up as fast as we could, but not before the other team rushed us with even more snowballs. It was a crazy mess. Snowballs flying left and right, all of us practically blinded.

And then, like a shadow falling from the sky, _he _descended upon us. One minute the two sides were battling fiercely, the next we were being bombarded by snowballs from up high. Each one was so perfectly placed, so perfectly timed, that it only took one or two for even Russia to fall down to the ground.

As I wiped off my face I looked up, but all I could see was the silhouette caused by the sun. Then I heard the laugh, and I knew exactly who it was.

"Kesesesese! Bow down to the awesomeness that is me!"

"Prussia!" Germany called up to his brother. "What the hell do you think you are doing?"

"I'm being awesome!" Prussia cried back, before sliding down onto the balcony and jumping onto the snow.

"There's a difference between being awesome and being annoying," I said as I stood up, brushing the snow off of myself. "And that definitely wasn't awesome."

"It totally was, you just don't know what awesome is!" Prussia protested. But I was too busy shaking off my hat to pay attention to him.

"Well Prussia, thanks to your shenanigans, I'm soaking wet," Megan said, putting her hands on her hips. "I'll probably catch a fever out here. It's cold and the sun's starting to set."

So it was, and for the first time that evening, I realized that I was getting really cold. I was soaked all the way through to my skin, and the snow in my hair was melting fast.

"Maybe we should call it a day," I said. America and Italy both sent me sad puppy faces."Oh relax you two, we still have two weeks of vacation left. Plenty of time to have more snowball fights. And you know what? I have some hot chocolate mix in the cupboard."

"Hot chocolate?!" America cried. He ran back inside, peeling off his coat as he opened the door. I just smiled to myself and followed him in.

"Alright, who wants some hot chocolate?" I said to the group once everyone was inside. "We also have tea, coffee, and apple cider, if you'd prefer that."

Almost everyone ended up with hot chocolate except for Hannah, who wanted coffee, and England, who opted for tea. Once everyone had their beverage of choice, we sat down around the same couches we'd watched Doctor Who on all those months ago. I picked up the little remote control for our fireplace and turned it up as far as I dared. Any farther and the house might burn down.

With the fire crackling in front of us, the air became much warmer, and I found myself getting sleepy as I laid my head against America's shoulders. I closed my eyes, letting myself relax and unwind for what felt like the first time since I'd last been in Minnesota. The last thought I had before falling asleep was that for the first time in my life, I truly felt complete.

_The End_

* * *

**Well, that's it. The end. It's all over.**

**There are so many people I want to thank (jeez I feel like I'm accepting an Oscar), and I just have to say thank you to all my close friends that pushed me to update and sometimes helped me with the plot lines of my story. Without you guys, these updates would have been SO much slower than they already were.**

**Another thank you to anyone who read my story and anyone who put it on their alerts list or favorited it. You were all such an amazing inspiration to me, both to write and to do a good job doing it.**

**And a final thank you to everyone who reviewed this story. I wish I could give all of you a hug, but alas, there is this thing called distance. If I had a TARDIS it wouldn't be a problem, but I don't so it is.**

** I LOVE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! HAVE A GOOD DAY!**


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